{"id":68038,"date":"2025-12-02T14:47:17","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T14:47:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/68038\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T14:47:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T14:47:17","slug":"clearwater-residents-show-up-in-droves-for-a-chance-to-save-on-duke-energy-bills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/68038\/","title":{"rendered":"Clearwater residents show up in droves for a chance to save on Duke Energy bills"},"content":{"rendered":"

CLEARWATER, Fla. \u2014 The line of Clearwater<\/a> residents looking to speak with Duke Energy<\/a> on Monday morning trailed on for over a block, as the energy company held a community outreach event to bring its services directly to residents.<\/p>\n

With the holiday season here, residents showed up in droves after hearing they could learn about programs available to help decrease their electric bills.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was dark when I got here,\u201d one resident in attendance, Michael Scott, said. \u201cIf I save $2, I\u2019m happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t common for an energy company to offer an event of this kind to residents \u2014 but what\u2019s happening between Duke Energy and Clearwater isn\u2019t all that common, either.<\/p>\n

In September, Clearwater voted to move forward in the process of potentially cutting ties with Duke Energy<\/a> and operating its own electric utility company, with the current 30-year franchise agreement set to expire at the end of the month. Clearwater believes this could save residents 10% on their electric bills.<\/p>\n

When that deal does expire, the current deal will continue until a new one is reached, so residents don\u2019t need to worry about their lights shutting off.<\/p>\n

Clearwater is still actively considering ending its long partnership with Duke Energy at some point in the near future. It’s a process that isn\u2019t as simple as them just wanting to do so. Duke says it isn\u2019t just going to hand over its business, so the city would have to acquire infrastructure through eminent domain \u2014 and that\u2019s something that could take years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Duke has argued that this switch won\u2019t lead to guaranteed savings and that creating a city power service can be risky and take years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be a fight but I just hope it\u2019ll be a successful one and we can lower some rates,\u201d Clearwater councilmember David Allbritton said.<\/p>\n

Duke Energy told 10 Tampa Bay News the location of their event on Monday in Clearwater was unrelated to the ongoing battle with Clearwater.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis community really needed our help,\u201d spokesperson Aly Raschid said. \u201cWe\u2019re here today to talk about this event and what we\u2019re doing in the community to help the local Clearwater community, and we\u2019re grateful for the opportunity to connect with them and provide the resources that they need to pay their bills this holiday season.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were a lot of folks who were behind on their bills, and so we wanted to start here,\u201d Raschid said.<\/p>\n

Raschid said the goal was to educate residents about cost-saving programs and inform them that the company plans to lower rates by 22% in March, saving the average customer $44 for every 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity used.<\/p>\n

The City of Clearwater did not respond to a request for a statement on the potential of cutting ties with Duke. But residents said they don\u2019t feel strongly one way or another.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs long as they are legal and the rates are affordable, that’s all it matters to me,\u201d Scott said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEARWATER, Fla. \u2014 The line of Clearwater residents looking to speak with Duke Energy on Monday morning trailed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-68038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68038","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=68038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}