PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — As AI data center proposals spread across Florida, state regulators are taking a close look at whether Duke Energy's plan does enough to protect customers from paying the cost of powering them.
The case marks the first major test of Florida's new data center law, passed this year to ensure that large electricity users pay the cost of the infrastructure they require rather than shifting those costs onto other utility customers.
At a hearing Tuesday, members of the Florida Public Service Commission raised concerns about whether Duke's proposal meets those new requirements.
"I think you're on real shaky ground, if you ask me," Commissioner Gary Clark told Duke Energy during the hearing.
The debate comes as developers propose massive AI data centers across the state, including a planned facility in Fort Meade. Projects like the one proposed there can require enormous amounts of electricity, enough to force utilities to build new power plants, transmission lines, and other infrastructure.
Earthjustice attorney Jordan Luebkemann, who represents Florida Rising, called Duke's filing "the first test of the new law."
“I think the commission has a real opportunity here to get it right from the outset and to give effect to the intent that is so clear in the statute, which is that data centers should be paying their costs and no one else should be paying their costs for them,” he said.
Florida's new law requires utilities to ensure large electricity users, such as data centers, pay their own costs, including new generation, transmission, and infrastructure needed to serve them.
Duke Energy says its proposal does exactly that.
In a statement to Tampa Bay 28 News, the company said its plan is designed to protect existing customers while preparing for future growth.
Duke also said that because it is operating under a current rate settlement, customer base rates will not include data center costs through the end of 2027. If a large-load customer does not generate enough revenue to cover its costs before then, Duke says shareholders, not existing customers, would absorb the difference.
State regulators ultimately voted to allow Duke's proposal to move forward and rejected a request to dismiss the case.
The commission is expected to revisit the proposal during a two-day hearing in late August, when regulators will decide whether Duke's plan complies with Florida's new law.
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