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Florida consumers, already fuming in recent years from higher property insurance premiums, repair costs and homeowner association fees, could soon see another burden on their pocketbooks: Duke Energy has filed a plan with the Florida Public Service Commission to recover about $1.1 billion in direct costs associated with the company’s emergency activation and response to hurricanes Debby, Helene and Milton.

Severe storms this year forced major U.S. utilities to shut down or slow power plant operations.

Duke, the utility covering North and South Carolina, but with customers in Florida and three other states, said the hurricanes hit its service territories and ripped away miles of transmission lines and power poles, leaving tens of thousands of its customers without electricity.

The company said that residential customers’ monthly bills will increase by about $21 per 1,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity in March 2025 compared to February 2025, and that storm costs will remain on bills through the end of February 2026.

Operating and maintenance (O&M) costs for utilities increase during adverse weather conditions due to damages to infrastructure such as power lines, which cause disruptions to service in the form of outages.

Duke said that given the severity of the three storms, the filing covers a range of costs, such as deploying hundreds of crews across the company’s service territories and acquiring significant assistance from the country and Canada.

In , utility NextEra Energy’s subsidiary, Florida Power & Light Company (FPL), also filed to recover nearly $1.2 billion in hurricane restoration costs with the Florida PSC due to widespread damage caused by Hurricane Milton.

(Reporting by Pooja Menon in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)

Topics Catastrophe Natural Disasters Windstorm Hurricane