The first week of hearings on Florida Power & Light’s proposed $7 billion rate hike is wrapping up in the state capital.<\/p>\n
If the Florida Public Service Commission approves the four-year plan, the average customer who now pays $134 a month would see their bill rise to $136.50 in 2026. <\/p>\n
Bills could rise by 2029<\/p>\n
By the fourth year of the increase, in 2029, average monthly bills would rise another $8, according to FPL.<\/p>\n
“In the past 10 years, my costs have doubled. I once paid a thousand dollars a month; now I pay two thousand a month,” said business owner Julian Siegel.<\/p>\n
Siegel runs the Riverside Caf\u00e9. He’s trying to avoid charging customers more, but a power bill increase is something he says he can’t afford.<\/p>\n
Business owner braces for impact<\/p>\n
“My insurance bill went down. But I can’t imagine the FPL bill going higher,” he said.<\/p>\n
FPL says it needs the increase to meet the demands of Florida’s growing population. The utility says it must build new power plants, replace aging infrastructure, and invest in smart technology to reduce outages.<\/p>\n
Decision expected by November<\/p>\n
A decision could come as early as November, affecting 12 million customers statewide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first week of hearings on Florida Power & Light’s proposed $7 billion rate hike is wrapping up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1652,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[123,807,232,234,233],"class_list":["post-1651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-miami","tag-south-florida","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}