Lower fuel prices are pushing power bills down. Florida Power & Light Company, which services almost all of Flagler County, said today the typical residential bill will fall about $2 a month, or $24 over the year, beginning January 1, 2015. Business customers will see a decrease of roughly 1 percent, depending on rate class and type of service.
By law, utility companies are required to pass on any savings from fuel costs to customers. Conversely, customers also had to bear the cost of higher fuel prices in the past few years.
The decrease taking effect in January is based on a 1,000-kWh residential customer’s bill. FPL residential customers can calculate their estimated savings by entering their monthly electricity usage into the oonline calculator here.
FPL says its typical customer bill continues to be approximately 25 percent lower than the national average, and for nearly six years in a row, the lowest of all reporting utilities in Florida.
FPL customer bills have remained low, the company claims, in part because of the company’s long-term investments in clean, fuel-efficient power plants, such as the FPL Riviera Beach Clean Energy Center that began powering customers this year. In total, since 2001, FPL’s investments in clean, fuel-efficient power plants have saved customers more than $7.5 billion on fuel costs and helped reduce our use of foreign oil by 99 percent.
These investments have also enabled FPL to produce significantly cleaner power, preventing more than 85 million tons of carbon emissions to date, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency equivalent of removing 16 million cars from the road.
Brian Curbow says
Wow! 2 whole dollars a month! That amounts to a whopping 1/2 tank of gas a year! I feel like I just won the Powerball jackpot! What can I possibly buy with that whole $2 a month I will save?