Florida Power and Light customers' rates going up

FLORIDA — The Florida Public Service Commission on Tuesday unanimously approved $800 million in rate increases to be carried out over the next three years. The hike would add about $10 per month to the average customer’s bill by 2019.

Karen Sutton and her husband, who has a physical disability, said they live on a fixed income. Sutton said she’s frustrated to hear her electric bill will soon be going up.

“I’m not thrilled. We don’t need any more higher bills,” said Sutton.

“Ten dollars doesn’t sound like much, but when you start adding it up, it gets to be a lot of money,” Sutton said.

“What this allows us to do is continue to make the kind of smart investments that we’ve been doing now for, in some cases, for the better part of 15 years,” said Eric Silagy, CEO of Florida Power and Light.

FPL told

collected the rates of other power companies to see how FPL compares. Duke Energy customers pay about $111 a month. OUC customers pay about $106 a month and FPL customers pay about $92 a month; that will increase to $103 by 2019.

Eyewitness News asked the Public Service Commission how power companies like FPL are held accountable to their promises when rates go up. The commission said it does continuous monitoring by a team of auditors, engineers and lawyers. All power companies are required to file annual reports, the commission said.

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