Ratcheting up a battle about a proposed Florida Power & Light rate settlement, opponents have offered a "counter proposal" that would trim potential increases over the next four years.
FPL quickly criticized the new proposal, which was filed Tuesday by the state Office of Public Counsel — an agency designated in law to represent consumers in utility issues — and four groups that are parties in the FPL case.
The new filing appeared to put down a marker for what could be a contentious hearing in October at the Florida Public Service Commission in a rate case involving billions of dollars.
READ MORE: Florida Office of Public Counsel vows to fight FPL rare deal
As an indication, the Office of Public Counsel and its allies identified themselves Tuesday as the “customer majority parties,” while identifying FPL and groups and businesses that hammered out the utility’s proposed settlement as the “special interest parties.”
“The majority settlement agreement (the new filing) contains proposed resolutions which fully resolve all of the issues in (the case) and results in customer rates that are actually in the public interest and not disproportionately favorable to the special interest parties,” the filing by the Office of Public Counsel and the groups Florida Rising, the League of United Latin American Citizens of Florida, Environmental Confederation of Southwest Florida and Floridians Against Increased Rates said.
The filing came after FPL and numerous groups and businesses filed their proposed settlement last week. The Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities, has scheduled a potential two-week hearing in the case in October.
“FPL stands behind its proposed settlement agreement, which was developed jointly with a broad coalition of customer groups and would enable FPL to continue investing for reliable service in a growing state while keeping customer bills well below the national average through the end of the decade,” FPL said in a statement Tuesday after the new proposal was filed.
The utility also contended that the new proposal “has no legal merit as an enforceable settlement,” describing the filing by the Office of Public Counsel and its allies as “like settling with yourself.”
FPL’s proposed settlement would increase base electric rates over the next four years — but not by as much as FPL originally sought in a plan filed in February.
The proposal would lead to increases of $945 million in 2026 and $766 million in 2027, according to the utility. FPL also would collect additional amounts in 2028 and 2029 for solar-energy and battery-storage projects.
The opponents’ filing on Tuesday would result in increases of $867 million in 2026 and $403 million in 2027. It would also leave open the possibility of FPL seeking increases of an estimated $195 million in 2028 and $174 million in 2029 for generation-related projects that could include solar and battery projects.
The opponents said the FPL proposal could lead to cumulative increases over four years of $6.903 billion, while the new filing could result in cumulative increases of $5.241 billion.
Base-rate cases are highly complex and play out over months, with voluminous amounts of technical and financial data. In addition to differences in the bottom-line numbers, the proposed FPL settlement and the filing on Tuesday include other key differences.
As an example, a closely watched issue in base-rate cases is utilities’ allowed “return on equity,” a measure of profitability. The proposed FPL settlement includes a 10.95 percent target for return on equity. The opponents’ filing on Tuesday included a 10.6 percent target.
FPL reached its proposed settlement with the Florida Industrial Power Users Group; the Florida Retail Federation; the Florida Energy for Innovation Association; Americans for Affordable Clean Energy; the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy; Walmart Inc.; EVgo Services, LLC; Circle K Stores, Inc.; RaceTrac Inc.; Wawa, Inc.; Electrify America, LLC; Armstrong World Industries, Inc.; and federal government agencies.
That proposal was announced days before the Public Service Commission was scheduled to start a hearing this month on the rate plan that FPL filed in February. The initial plan sought increases of $1.545 billion in 2026 and $927 million in 2027, along with passing along costs in 2028 and 2029 for solar and battery projects.