Florida’s extreme cold snap this winter will continue affecting Lakelanders’ wallets into the spring months.
Lakeland Electric will raise its fuel rate from from $47 to $62 per 1,000 kilowatt hours starting April 1. This measure was approved by a 6-to-1 vote of the City Commission at their March 2 meeting.
The new fuel rate is a $15 increase, nearly 32%, representing one of the larger increases in recent years. While significant, it falls short of the utility’s all-time high of $75 per 1,000 kilowatt hours in September 2024.
For the average Lakeland Electric residential homeowner who uses 1,200 kilowatt hours per billing cycle, that’s about $18 more per month.
Sandra Ruede, LE’s fuel manager, said the extreme cold snap that affected most of the nation’s East Coast with record-setting snowfalls are to blame.
“In October, we expected it would be a pretty regular winter with some spots of cold. How intense those spots of cold are and how long is the duration, that’s what impacts the price volatility,” she told commissioners at the Feb. 27 Utility Committee. “In January, we were chugging along fantastically until the 23rd of January weather events were moving in.”
Typically, when Florida gets a cold winter snap, it gets hit with freezing weather overnight and warms up during the day. This year’s cold snap impacted areas as far south as Miami, which experienced temperatures in the 30s.
Ruede said Lakeland Electric anticipated some pricing risk for natural gas, but after the massive snowstorm sweeping from Texas across to the Northeast, natural gas production did not come back online as anticipated.
Lakeland Electric took measures to prepare itself, Ruede said, by filling its oil tanks and operating any dual generation units on oil instead of natural gas to relieve some of the demand on the national supply.
The municipal-owned utility spent an estimated $7 million in fuel costs from Jan. 1 to 23, according to Ruede, in line with its average budgeted expenses. Because of spiking prices for fuel, it spent about another $7 million in fuel to generate energy for the next eight days from Jan. 24 to 31.
The cold weather struck during the time that utilities are setting rates for fuel for February, Ruede said. Because of this, the cost of natural gas has remained significantly higher than normal and in demand with the cold snap that hit the first week of February.
“We’re about $10 (million) to $15 million over budget in those two months due to one weather event,” she said.
Lakeland Electric’s fuel reserves have taken a hit as a result. Ruede said the utility went into 2026 with approximately $29 million in its reserves, which has gradually dwindled to $19 million.
As such, the utility sought the commissioners’ approval to raise the fuel rate and start recovering funds. Ruede said the steeper rate will be in effect from April to June, a time period in which weather across Central Florida tends to be fairly moderate resulting in most households using less electricity, which should help offset the rare increase.
If Lakeland Electric can “get a jump on starting to recover,” Ruede said she anticipates the utility will be able to start lowering its fuel rate going into summer where electrical use tends to increase dramatically to cool homes.
Right Now, Ruede said she’s been tracking predictions, and the summer temperatures are expected to be fairly normal in Central Florida.
“What I want to point out is weather is always our wild card. It has the most impact on the volatility of gas prices,” she told commissioners. “March is projected to be mild, and summer is looking to be pretty average, there’s no anticipation of anything crazy.”
Lakeland Electric is still expecting to receive around $14 million in reimbursements from Hurricane Milton, which hit in October 2024. Whether or not the utility receives these funds could be critical to its financial health at the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Lakeland Electric fuel rates will rise this spring after cold snap
Reporting by Sara-Megan Walsh, Lakeland Ledger / The Ledger
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
