FPL

After an initial rate reduction early on in May, Florida Power & Light is proposing another rate decrease, this time a $256 million cut to take effect in July.The FPL proposal, made Friday to the Florida Public Service Commission, calls for reducing the fuel portion of customer bills by $256 million starting in July, reflecting continued downward revisions in projected natural gas costs for 2023 after last year's high levels.

FPL's plan, which the state Public Service Commission unanimously supported without discussion, will reduce customers’ monthly bills starting in May — and partially offset increases that took effect in April.

A collaboration of at least 10 advocacy organizations in Florida have launched a campaign to mobilize the Hillsborough County Commission to push back against rate hikes driven by fossil fuel prices.

An FPL proposal filed with the Florida Public Service Commission would reduce the fuel charge on the typical 1,000-kWh residential customer bill by $4.43 a month, including taxes and fees, from May through December – reflecting a second downward revision in projected natural gas costs for 2023 after last year's high levels.

Two regional utilities, Alabama Power and Florida Power & Light, hired the consulting firm Matrix to help shape their fortunes. Matrix paid six news sites that attacked officials who challenged the companies.

On Monday a group of about 30 Florida Power & Light employees, friends and neighbors donated their time of decorate the Port Charlotte home of Leah and Justin Hessinger and their children, Faith, 14, and Carter, 5.

After pouring workers and equipment into restoring electricity after Hurricane Ian, Florida Power & Light expects to seek approval to recoup about $1.1 billion from customers, officials said Friday. It was not immediately clear when FPL will file a proposal at the Florida Public Service Commission — or how the proposal would affect customers’ monthly bills.

Among its 21 counties, power has been restored to 1.8 million customers or 83 percent of FPL’s range.

Fla. Gov. Ron DeSantis said the Lee County Electric Cooperative is moving too slowly restoring power to its customers in the hardest-hit communities in Southwest Florida after Hurricane Ian and needs to ask for more help in terms of mutual assistance.The governor said the LCEC needs to accept help from mutual aid groups in hard-hit areas like Cape Coral, North Fort Myers, Sanibel, and Pine Island. National agencies such as the Florida Electrical Cooperatives Association on Sunday morning said it remained ready with resources from its members around the state willing to come in and help.DeSantis’ reaction came after a briefing at the State Emergency Operations Center in Tallahassee on the efforts to restore power in Southwest Florida.DeSantis learned the Florida Power & Light said more than 45% of their accounts in Lee County were back on, but the LCEC reported power restored to just to 9% of their customers, which represents about 18,000 out of 183,000.

A little more than a day after Hurricane Ian made landfall, Florida Power & Light knew how many of its 2 million customers are without power, and where they are, but company officials can’t tell most of those whose power was still out more than 24 hours later when to expect the lights to turn back on.“Daylight revealed Hurricane Ian’s utter destruction, and our hearts go out to our fellow Floridians whose lives have been upended,” said Eric Silagy, FPL’s chairman and chief executive officer. “We know the vital role electricity plays. Rest assured, we will not stop until we can get the lights back on.”Hurricane Ian came ashore near Fort Myers as a Category 4 storm packing sustained winds of 150 mph on a trajectory that would prove devastating for many reasons: the strength of its winds, its slow forward speed, and its meandering path that meant the huge storm touched nearly every place in peninsular Florida.Power had been restored to much of Southeast Florida, which was hit by Ian’s feeder bands for 36 hours, which is where many of the 750,000 customers who had their service turned on in the first 24 hours lived.