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On Monday, August 10th, the Florida Public Service Commission approved the authorization of storm protection plans (SPP) for four investor-owned utilities (, , , and ) according to an article from . This multi-billion-dollar investment will pay for undergrounding power lines and other system improvements that have proven to be successful. FPL is estimating between 300-700 power lines buried annually from 2021 to 2024.

Some experts have voiced concerns that storm hardening may be a quick fix to a long-term problem, however, FPL spokesman Bill Orlove is confident in the project. He states, “These programs have benefited customers by successfully reducing restoration costs and outage times during major storms, as well as improving day-to-day service reliability.”

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Florida’s investor-owned electric utilities proposed plans for nearly $19.4 billion spend on grid hardening activities to enhance storm protection. These plans are followed by a recently enacted state law to make more proactive investments towards storm damage and outages that the state commonly faces. 

Duke Energy Florida LLC, Florida Power & Light Co., Gulf Power Co., and Tampa Electric Co. are the four major companies involved in this proposal. Irby has worked with each of these in the past and some are current clients. FPL’s VP of Distribution is quoted in the article.

“Florida remains the most hurricane-prone state in the nation and, with the significant coastline exposure of FPL’s system and the fact that the vast majority of FPL’s customers live within 20 miles of the coast, a robust storm protection plan is critical to maintaining and improving grid resiliency and storm restoration,” Michael Jarro said. 

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As the storm season approaches, Florida Utilities are outlining long term plans for protecting customers from massive power outages. Four major utilities have filed plans that call for billions of dollars of projects over the next decade to strengthen electric systems against hurricanes. A key component to each plan is a significant amount of underground projects. 

According to a , Florida Power & Light, Duke Energy Florida, Tampa Electric Co. and Gulf Power filed the plans Friday at the state Public Service Commission. The filings were an initial step as regulators review the plans and, ultimately, decide how costs will be passed along to utility customers.

The story reports some of the planned spending. For example, FPL’s newly filed plan, calls for spending an estimated $510 million a year on underground power-line projects. Meanwhile, Tampa Electric wants to spend more than $100 million in most years, with a total of $976.8 million over the decade, according to its filing. Duke said it expects to spend about $2.2 billion over 10 years on underground and overhead “lateral” power lines, which generally carry electricity into neighborhoods.