So, there is plenty of talk about electricity rates going up in Florida. In fact, Florida Power & Flight was awarded new rates that took effect Jan 1.
The impact
Our home’s power bill in December was $261. In January, despite significantly LOWER power use, our bill jumped to $330.
FP&L’s explains the leap in the image below, which I will summarize here:
- Temperature or bill cycle length claimed a mere $22.18.
- The remaining $73.90 is due to “changes in the way you use electricity, power outages, and changes to rates, taxes or fees are other factors that may impact your bill”.
In other words, a big rate increase approved by the State of Florida
It gets worse
Next month (Feb), FP&L estimates we will need to fork over $423 (and for fewer days) assuming the same consumption pattern.
Anyone else experiencing a big jump, please share it below in the comments.
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Update 2-3-2026 6:45am:
Our AC system is a year old and previously exhibited this cost-of-use jump when first installed in cold weather. And I forgot that it is designed so that a gap … I now have to check … of something like 3 degrees between current and a new desired heating temperature automatically kicks in “coil heating”. Much more expensive use of electricity than the heat pump, which does return to take over when the gap is reduced to something manageable, maybe 2-3 degrees. While the FP&L rate hike played a role, user-error seems to be the bigger culprit.
Another bit of information that most people don’t seem to know is that there’s a significant difference between the “peak” and “non-peak” rates for a kWh of electricity. I won’t go into the details here of the Winter and Summer rate structure, but readers can look it up on the FPL website. It’s worth a few minutes of reading. For example, it’s probably worth your while to run your dishwasher and clothes dryer either in the morning or late evening. Check it out.
Steve
Brian, the little bit of research I’ve been able to do shows that on January 1 of 2026, the FPL price of electricity rose to $.137 per kWh. The article I saw said that it’s a rise of about 2%, which is not too bad, I guess, in view of the recent past national trend. Several years ago (five or six maybe?) I recall seeing it at about $.11 per kWh, so if my memory is close to being accurate, perhaps that’s not too bad. We’ll all see how the bills go in the next few months,
Steve
I keep meticulous records on my electrical usage and cost. The average unit cost for electricity in 2025 was 14.08 cents per KWH and in January 2025 it was 14.86 cents per KWH. In January of 2026 the average cost was 15.08 cents per KWH. The increase from January to January was 1.48 %, less than inflation. Just the facts. The biggest increase in electrical unit cost in Florida since I’ve lived here (about 30 years) was during the Biden administration, up about 43% from before he took office.
My bill for December was $175 and the January bill was $245. Some of the jump might be due to increased use of heat.