Florida's utility regulators have unanimously refused to let Duke Energy Florida charge ahead with the state's first data-center power plan, ruling on Tuesday, November 3, in Tallahassee that the company had not shown its proposal obeyed a new Florida law written to stop households and small businesses from paying for the enormous electricity appetites of hyperscale data centers. The Florida Public Service Commission (PSC) voted 5-0 to deny Duke Energy Florida's proposed large-load tariff as filed — the first tariff tested under Senate Bill 484, the 2026 data-centers law that took effect on July 1. The decision does not ban a single data center and does not cut off power to anyone. It sends Duke back to rebuild its rate plan so that, in the law's own test, each very large customer provably bears its own full cost of service, with no cost and no nonpayment risk shifted onto the general body of ratepayers.

Source: Food & Water Watch, FL PSC Rejects Duke's Data Center Plan (Nov. 3, 2026)

The first test of SB 484

Governor Ron DeSantis signed SB 484 into law in May 2026. As Food & Water Watch summarised the statute, it states explicitly that ordinary ratepayers will not be responsible for the incremental transmission and generation costs created by data centers, and it requires every investor-owned utility in Florida to create a new large-load tariff rate class for such customers. RTO Insider, the energy-trade publication, called Tuesday's denial the first test of that law — a law intended, in its words, to shield state residents from the cost of meeting hyperscale data centers' electricity demands. Because Duke was the first utility to file under the new law, the commission's reasoning becomes the template every other Florida utility now has to file against, starting with Tampa Electric, which lodged its own large-load tariff, with a separate data-center class, at the end of September.

What Duke actually filed

Duke petitioned the PSC on April 22, 2026 — Docket No. 20260064-EI — for a Large Load Customer Policy, a Large Load Customer Agreement and revised Contribution in Aid of Construction tariffs, according to the commission staff recommendation reported by MGrid. The package applies to firm loads with a monthly maximum demand of 50 megawatts or more at a single location. It sets a 20-year minimum contract term, minimum billing at 75 to 85 percent of contract capacity, a minimum load factor of at least 60 percent, and a non-refundable $150,000 system impact study fee. A customer leaving early would need two years' notice and would owe an exit fee equal to 36 months of minimum bills plus the net book value of any new facilities built for it. What the package does not contain, staff stressed, is a rate: large-load customers would keep taking service under the existing GSD-1 and GSDT-1 schedules until a brand-new rate class arrives, which Duke targeted for January 1, 2028 — after its 2024 rate settlement expires on December 31, 2027.

Source: MGrid, Florida PSC staff recommendation, Docket 20260064-EI (Oct. 24, 2026)

Why the commission's own staff said no

On October 22, PSC staff recommended denial as filed, with leave to refile, and the commissioners adopted that course on Tuesday. Staff's core finding, quoted in the Food & Water Watch release, was that Duke's proposal cannot 'reasonably ensure that each large load customer bears its own full cost of service and that such cost is not shifted to the general body of ratepayers.' Staff made three further points, reported by MGrid. First, the rate freeze in Duke's 2024 settlement 'only addresses half of the statute' — the full-cost half 'remains an open question,' and Duke 'cannot rely on the settlement as a reason to defer an otherwise necessary rate modification until 2028.' Second, scope: the tariff covers only customers requesting firm service, and 'nothing in the statute supports any such distinction,' so a 50 MW customer taking non-firm service would fall outside it entirely. Third, staff objected to a clause letting Duke negotiate non-material terms without commission review, and to Duke's security formula, recommending security of two months of minimum bills instead.

Both sides were heard before the vote. At the August 25 hearing, Earthjustice attorney Bradley Marshall, appearing for Florida Rising, pointed to the parity index of 0.91 approved in the 2024 settlement for the GSD-1 and GSDT-1 classes — meaning those classes recover only 91 percent of their cost to serve — and argued, 'Duke's proposal doesn't come close and must be rejected.' Duke's attorney Dianne Triplett countered that 'no party has identified a mechanism by which approval of this tariff could increase any customer rates before the end of 2027,' and the Florida Industrial Power Users Group, Nucor Steel and PCS Phosphate backed the tariff as filed. The Inference, reviewing the hearing record, put the commission's objection more bluntly: in September hearings Duke would not make public what its plan would cost homes and small businesses, and the panel found the plan did not demonstrate compliance with the law. More than 4,400 members of the public had commented on the docket by October 20.

The chair, the company and the consumer case

PSC Chair Gabriella Passidomo Smith said she was confident the company can build on its work to produce a tariff that meets the Legislature's requirements, as Florida Phoenix's reporting, carried in the Florida Front Porch morning brief, summarised the hearing. Duke, for its part, said it remains focused on making sure data centers pay their full cost of service. The consumer groups that fought the filing called the vote an affordability win. Brooke Ward, Florida state director of Food & Water Watch, said: 'The only reason that utility regulators denied Duke's plans to pass data center costs to families and small businesses is because of legislation preventing them from doing so. Otherwise, Florida ratepayers would be on the hook to subsidize the billionaire tech class looking to build data centers in our communities, at our expense. Today's vote is a victory for affordability.' Her organisation's analysis finds that between January 2021 and January 2026, Duke Energy customer bills jumped 45 percent — over twice the rate of inflation — amounting to over $688 more a year, and it notes Duke plans to file a petition for a further rate increase in the new year.

A separate decision cuts January bills by about $33

The same commission, in a separate action reported by Florida Phoenix, approved reductions that will leave a typical Duke residential bill — based on 1,000 kilowatt-hours of use — about $33 lower in January 2027 than in January 2026. That cut is helped by a tax strategy that avoids a base-rate increase that had been scheduled for 2027, with an extra $10 monthly cut running from March through November, and it is not data-center money: Duke itself ties the reduction to the tax strategy. Commercial and industrial customers will see decreases of 0.9 percent to 3.8 percent. Keeping the two decisions separate matters for readers checking their own bills: the $33 is a reduction the commission has approved; the data-center vote is about who would have paid for future power plants and wires if the next wave of very large customers connects under a tariff the regulators found unproven.

What it means for Florida households and small businesses

For the roughly 2 million customers Duke serves in Florida — including Punjabi diaspora families, independent truckers running Florida freight corridors, and the small businesses, warehouses, restaurants and repair shops whose power bills track residential and small-commercial rates — Tuesday's vote means the cost of serving a 160 MW or larger data center cannot be quietly folded into their bills under this filing. The protection is procedural, not permanent: it holds only if the tariff Duke refiles, and the tariffs its fellow utilities file, genuinely assign each large load its full cost, and the real test of that arrives in Duke's 2027 rate case, where new generation for these customers would be priced. Households that have already absorbed a 45 percent bill rise in five years, on the consumer groups' figures, keep the legal shield SB 484 gave them — for now, with a regulator that has shown it will use it.

What happens next

Duke must now refile a tariff Florida will accept — one that, on the staff's analysis, sets an actual large-load rate instead of deferring it to 2028, covers every customer meeting the 50 MW definition whether its service is firm or not, keeps negotiated terms under commission review, and carries the security staff recommended. Tampa Electric's pending filing, built around a separate data-center class, is the next case the commission will judge against the standard set on Tuesday, and the staff recommendations issued October 22 also covered Florida Power & Light and Florida Public Utilities, whose proposed revisions staff advised suspending for further examination. Above all of it sits Duke's expected rate-increase petition in the new year and its 2027 rate case, where, as MGrid put it, the question of who pays for new generation for the 13 queued large-load requests lands. Awaaz Punjab will follow the refiled tariff and the Tampa Electric decision as they are filed.