If you're a Duke Energy customer, your electricity bill could be cheaper starting next month.
But it's not because costs are coming down.
The reduction comes after the company received enough money from its customers to cover its $1.1 billion storm recovery effort.
According to the company, residential customers will receive about $33 off per 1,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) used.
Commercial and industrial customers will see their monthly bills drop between 9.6% and 15.8% when compared to January.
Moreover, residential electricity bills will be lower by an additional $11 per 1,000 kWh used starting in March, resulting in a total cutback of $44 compared to January.
Duke spokeswoman Aly Raschid said the company’s storm recovery plan helped them get the power back on as soon as possible following the 2024 hurricanes.
“We bring in a ton of resources to help us get the lights back on for our customers,” she said. “We’ve brought in crews from all over the country that we have to house and feed, and that’s where all of our costs came from. We were constantly monitoring to see where we were in the recovery process, and we found that we had enough funds to remove the cost, so we did that immediately.”
Last year, the company announced improvements to its infrastructure throughout the state.
“Between our improvements to our plants in Bartow and St. Pete, we were able to shave off about $10 from all of our customers’ bills,” Raschid said.
According to the company, those upgrades, along with $65 million in Inflation Reduction Act tax credits, will help lower customer bills even further in the future.
However, Food and Water Watch Florida State Director Brooke Ward said the decision to end the storm surcharge was not voluntary.
“Duke has already fully recovered their storm costs, and that is why they need to stop collecting at the end of the month. Otherwise, they would overcollect,” Ward said. “Duke bills are still up by over $25 per month from what they were five years ago, a 44% increase between December 2019 and June 2025, and they plan to increase rates again in the next year.”
Ward said she believes the decision followed a November hearing in which state regulators ordered Duke to end the charge early.
