Following a severe hurricane season, Duke Energy Florida will raise utility bills for the year. Photo by Cameron Healy
Following the severe 2024 hurricane season, Duke Energy Florida will raise utility bills to recover money spent on hurricane recovery efforts. According to the company’s press release, they spent nearly $1.1 billion in response and recovery efforts. Following Hurricanes Debby (which impacted Gulfport as a tropical storm), Helene, and Milton, Duke mobilized 27,000 workers to provide services to 2 million customers.
Beginning in March, Duke Energy Florida will raise utility bills to recover these costs.
The total impact will be about $21 per 1,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity. Customers will see these charges through February 2026. Although the storm charge is $31 per 1,000 kWh, customers already have an annual March-November $10 decrease to their bills.
Duke Energy Florida Raises Utility Bills
“Quickly and safely getting the lights back on for our customers was our highest priority after each of these brutal storms,” said Duke Energy Florida state president, Melissa Seixas. “While today’s filing reflects the costs of those efforts, we want to assure our customers that, as part of our overall commitment to affordability, we strived to minimize the impact on their bills as much as possible, and moving forward, we will keep making strategic investments to strengthen the electric grid and help ensure they have the reliable power they need.”
Duke Energy Florida offers financial assistance tools to customers. These include flexible billing and the “Share the Light Fund.” Visit duke-energy.com/HereToHelp for more information.
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Duke Energy Storm Stats
In the press release, Duke Energy Florida released their storm statistics. Following Hurricane Debby, customers across the state reported 350,000 outages, but restored 90% within 24 hours. Between Hurricanes Helene and Milton, customers reported 1.8 million outages. Across all three storms, the company replaced 2,805 electrical poles.
According to the release, Duke Energy deployed crews from across the country and Canada. This included setting up staging areas, lodging, and meals.
“This kind of continuous improvement is a cornerstone of the work we do at Duke Energy Florida, especially considering the increasing risk of more extreme weather in the future,” Seixas said.
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