By David L. Snelling

Miami – Florida Power and Light Company has filed a comprehensive four-year plan to increase customers’ rates for three years.

The electricity giant submitted a proposal to raise rates from 2026 to 2029 to the Florida Public Service Commission which has to give FPL the green light to do so.

FPL President and CEO Armando Pimentel said in a statement that the proposal would help the company build more solar energy plants to deliver some of the nation’s most reliable electricity, provide excellent customer service and diversify its generation resources to reduce fuel costs.

He said FPL will keep customers’ bills as low as possible under the new proposal.

“At FPL, we’re focused on our customers every single day,” Pimentel said. “The balanced plan we submitted to the PSC would enable FPL to continue to make smart investments in the grid and in new generation resources to benefit our customers and to power our fastgrowing state. No other utility in the U.S. provides a better combination of reliability, resiliency and low bills than FPL.”

According to the proposal, the base rate proposal would lead to increases of $1.545 billion in 2026 and $927 million in 2027.

Also, FPL would pass along costs to customers in 2028 and 2029 for solar energy and battery-storage projects.

FPL customers in the traditional service area, including South Florida, who use 1,000 kilowatt hours a month currently pay $134.14.

Under the proposal, the new estimated payments rise to $142.37 in 2026; $148.29 in 2027; $149.93 in 2028; and $151.99 in 2029, according to the utility.

FPL said modernizing its power plant fleet has saved customers more than $16 million in fuel costs, including $1 billion through investments in low-cost solar energy facilities.

The company said it intends to build additional solar energy centers and distribution infrastructure to meet the demand in one of America’s fastest growing states.

FPL has added over 275,000 customers since 2021 and expects an additional 335,000 throuogh 2029.

The company filed a vague proposal that outlined its plan to increase customers’ base rates but the latest proposal is more detailed, as FPL’s four-year rate plan terminates at the end of 2025.

The state of Fla. Public Counsel, which advocates for fair utility rates for customers, said it plans to fight FPL’s latest rate increase proposal.

The group said it will present its case before the PSC before the group makes a decision on the proposal.

Clean Energy Florida, a nonprofit, also will protest FPL’s rate increase proposal.

The nonprofit, which fights climate change and helps customers save money on electricity, said PSC’s decision in 2023 to allow Tampa Electric to increase rates for over 844,000 customers, was a disaster.

The group said FPL customers are headed down the same path.

In Tampa Electric’s case, its customers were already paying the third highest bills of any medium-to-large U.S. electric company when they saw a 13 percent increase to their energy charge.

Clean Energy Florida said the average residential bill will go up more than $10 per month.

Furthermore, the PSC commissioners rejected their own staff’s recommendation to use a method that allocates costs more fairly to residential customers, instead opting for a method that continues to shift more of the rate increase costs on to residential customers while giving business and industrial customers a break.

“Florida’s consumer advocate – the Office of Public Counsel – already raised the alarm about TECO’s requested rate increase, calling it “breathtaking” and “egregiously excessive,” Clean Energy Florida said in a statement. “Yet in the end, our commissioners gave TECO most of what it asked for at their customers’ expense. It’s a decision that only amplifies Tampa-area residents’ struggle to afford the cost of living. And it leaves the future uncertain for millions of other Floridians, as FPL will submit its own rate request to the PSC this year.”