ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — City leaders in St. Petersburg are looking into breaking with Duke Energy as its utility supplier.
The city's contract with Duke expires in 2026. The move was discussed in a Health, Energy, Resilience & Sustainability Committee meeting on Thursday.
"I've been having conversations with some residents and stakeholders behind the scenes that do not want us to 'rubber stamp' a new agreement with them," City Councilmember Brandi Gabbard said during the meeting.
"We're leaving all options on the table," Councilmember Richie Floyd, who chairs the city's special committee on energy, told 10 Tampa Bay.
The main alternative, according to Floyd, would be a municipal utility.
"Those would be utility services run by the city. The same way that the city runs your water services right now. It would be done, not for a profit like Duke does, but really with the needs of residents in mind," Floyd explained.
It's a utility model already in place in cities across the state, including Lakeland, Orlando, Jacksonville, and Tallahassee.
"I think that we've seen, from the private sector, a level of disrespect towards the consumers that they have, with charges that don't make any sense and price increases, that aren't justified. And so I think people have a high appetite for going to a municipal platform," Floyd added.
Beyond a good deal for residents, the committee is looking at options to best meet the city's clean energy goals.
"Our biggest, goal is for the entire city to be powered off of renewable energy by 2035," Floyd said. "And so we have to make sure, that we're meeting those targets."
Floyd said they're still in the very beginning stages of this conversation, and a lot of research and planning still has to be done, including how a municipal utility could hold up during hurricane season.
Meanwhile, a Duke Energy spokesperson responded to this idea Friday, pointing to a record of clean energy projects throughout St. Petersburg.
Spokesperson Ana Gibbs shared in a statement:
"At the very foundation of Duke Energy is a commitment to serve our customers and communities with reliable and increasingly clean energy. We have a proven history of supporting our customers achieve their sustainability goals. In 2021, we entered into a Memorandum of Understanding for Clean Energy Collaboration with the city of St. Petersburg. It outlined a strategic path on innovation, clean energy, economic development, customer choice programs and technology.
"Duke Energy Florida delivers on its clean energy commitment and we’re there for customers when they need us most; with an army of resources from across the country to combat the most powerful storms. We have the latest technology to reduce outages. During hurricanes Ian, Nicole and Idalia, recently installed self-healing grid technologies helped to automatically restore service to customers who experienced outages and saved more than 200 million minutes of total lost outage time."
"Duke Energy prides itself in supporting the vitality of the communities we serve and look forward to delivering innovative solutions to help the city of St. Petersburg achieve its clean energy goals for many years to come."