Florida electric bills skyrocketed recently. Here’s why.

TAMPA — In an apartment dimmed by drawn blinds to keep temperatures down, Krystal Pate weighs how to pay her bills. Rent always comes first. Then, she tries to put a dent in her growing balance with Tampa Electric.

Housing and grocery prices were already rising when recent hikes in Pate’s electricity bills added pressure. Last year, Pate often spent well over $300 a month to power her three-bedroom apartment in South Tampa, where she lives with her five kids.

A faulty air conditioning unit added more stress. One month her bill climbed to $455.

In recent years, Floridians experienced a dramatic spike in energy costs, according to a Tampa Bay Times analysis of data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Two years ago, energy prices in the state jumped about 17% and kept rising, contributing to a surge in cost-of-living expenses in the region made worse by higher inflation. Those who feel the effects most deeply were already struggling.

After a hip and leg injury years ago, Pate has had trouble working, she said. Her family depends mostly on her oldest son’s wages busing tables at the Westshore Yacht Club to pay the bills.

“Even talking about it breaks my heart because it’s hard to live,” she said. “Putting this on my son, it’s not fair.”

What’s driven the cost hikes

Last year, Florida’s energy bills were the fourth-highest in the nation, the Times found, up from 13th a decade before. Customers paid an average of about $168 a month.

Numerous factors contribute to the costs energy companies pass on to consumers, but in recent years the volatility of natural gas prices have been critical.

Two decades ago, natural gas surpassed coal as the No. 1 fuel burned to create electricity in Florida, and its use has taken off since. Now 74% of the state’s electricity is generated from natural gas — nearly twice the national average. As a result, Florida produces less electricity from coal and renewable sources than many other states.

Tampa Bay’s leading energy providers maintain the fuel is a reliable and efficient energy source that plays an important role in Florida. Both Tampa Electric and Duke Energy noted the companies are steadily enhancing production of solar energy and investing in ways to use less fuel.

Still, reliance on natural gas has made the state vulnerable to its cost fluctuations, according to reports prepared for the Times by the Florida State University Center for Economic Forecasting and Analysis.

From 2020 to 2022, the price of U.S. natural gas more than doubled, an increase that Julie Harrington, the director of the economic forecasting center, called “incredible.”

“It is alarming to just see these prices keep rising markedly the last couple of years,” she said. “It’s like an apocalypse.”

Complex factors, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, contributed, Harrington said, as the U.S. banned the import of natural gas from Russia, a major global supplier. Abnormally high temperatures in the summer of 2022 and ramped-up worldwide economic activity following the pandemic also increased demand, researchers noted.

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While the price of natural gas has begun to stabilize, some of the decreases since 2022 have still been for aberrant reasons. A fire at a key natural gas export facility in Texas forced the facility to shut down, which meant less domestic natural gas shipped overseas and more supply in the U.S. market, Harrington said.

“There was a convergence” of factors, she added, which means prices may continue to drop slowly, “until another catalyst gets it moving again.”

But even though the price dropped, there has been a lag in translating that relief to consumers. Duke Energy and Tampa Electric have twice filed paperwork with state regulators to lower the amount customers pay for fuel, the full extent of which could be felt starting this summer, the companies said. Florida utilities do not profit from fuel, passing the cost directly to consumers’ bills.

“Primarily in the last two years, (the increase) really has been around the cost of natural gas, which was nearly three times more than it historically had been,” said Melissa Seixas, president of Duke Energy Florida, at a March news conference. The company was announcing a utility assistance program administered by St. Petersburg. “Our customers felt that directly. There are absolutely ways that we were trying to offset those, including continued investments in solar, which then helps to decrease the utilization of certain fuel sources. … We’ll continue to have 100% commitment to reducing those costs.”

Some say utilities share the blame

Over a five-year period, the average Tampa Electric bill went up 51%, a Times analysis of federal data through 2023 shows. The average Duke Energy bill rose 28%.

Cherie Jacobs, a Tampa Electric spokesperson, noted the company temporarily reduced prices during the pandemic four years ago. But in subsequent years, data shows prices rose to unprecedented levels, and quickly. After reducing prices about 4% in 2020, the average TECO bill went up about 11% the…