Florida's Consumer Advocate Tells Supreme Court FPL's $7 Billion Rate Hike Was Approved While Regulators Stood By

Florida's top utility consumer advocate has asked the Florida Supreme Court to throw out the roughly $7 billion base rate increase Florida Power & Light customers have been paying since January. In a sharply worded filing on Thursday, Nov. 12, 2026, he argued that state regulators approved it without doing their job. Public Counsel Walt Trierweiler wants the justices to reverse the Florida Public Service Commission's approval of the 2025 rate settlement and send the case back for a full review.

The appeal covers FPL's roughly 12 million customers, more than half of Florida's population, the Tampa Bay Times reported. A ruling against the commission could also change how future utility rate cases are decided in Florida, and how much weight the state's consumer advocate carries in them.

What the public counsel is arguing

The Legislature appoints the public counsel to represent utility customers before the Public Service Commission. Trierweiler's filing argues that the commission has given up much of its oversight role and that Florida's utilities are moving toward regulating themselves, with help from other corporations, the Times reported.

He told the court the commission has come to rely on backroom settlements that skip the detailed, issue-by-issue review state law calls for. He said reviewing a utility's finances is demanding work: days of expert testimony and a record of about 600,000 pages. In his view, the commission took a shortcut to reach a decision. He reminded the justices that the Legislature created the commission as a check on monopoly power.

Consumer advocates are asking the court to reverse the approval and order regulators to look at the case again in more detail. No oral argument has been scheduled.

How the rate increase was approved

FPL first asked for $1.545 billion in new base revenue for 2026 and $927 million for 2027. The Office of Public Counsel estimated that request would have added up to about $9.8 billion over four years. In August 2025, FPL reached a settlement with a group of mostly large business interests that had intervened in the case. Those included the Florida Industrial Power Users Group, the Florida Retail Federation, Walmart, several fuel and electric vehicle charging companies, federal agencies, and the Florida Energy for Innovation Association, a group of unnamed companies interested in building data centers.

The Public Service Commission approved the four-year deal on Nov. 20, 2025. It allowed base rate increases of $945 million in 2026 and $705 million in 2027, plus more for solar and battery projects in 2028 and 2029. It set a 10.95 percent target return on equity, the profit benchmark for shareholders. The public counsel and allied groups estimate the deal's cumulative increases at about $6.9 billion over its term.

Trierweiler did not sign the settlement, and neither did resident groups including Florida Rising, LULAC of Florida and Floridians Against Increased Rates. They argued that residential customers would carry a disproportionate share of the cost so FPL could earn what they called an "unconscionable" return. Under Florida rules, the public counsel's signature is not required for the commission to approve a settlement.

During the hearing, commissioners acknowledged some discomfort. Commissioner Gabriela Passidomo Smith said of the return on equity, "In and of itself, I don't love this ROE," but said she was comfortable it met legal standards. Commissioner Gary Clark called the agreement a "balanced resolution." The commission later denied the public counsel's request to reconsider. That decision, in April 2026, cleared the way for the Supreme Court appeal.

The data center fight

A second set of arguments targets the way the settlement handles data centers. Duke Energy Florida and Tampa Electric submitted separate data center plans to regulators. FPL folded its data center provisions into the broader rate settlement now under appeal, the Times reported.

Bradley Marshall and Jordan Luebkemann, lawyers for several resident affordability groups, asked the justices to strike the data center plan. They argue it violates state law because all customers would pay for new solar plants and other infrastructure built mainly to serve data centers. In their view, the rules squeeze existing residential and small business customers so data centers can pay less.

Reporting on the settlement has noted that data center developers won concessions during negotiations. One example is a minimum "take-or-pay" requirement of 70 percent of contracted power rather than the 90 percent FPL originally proposed. FPL has said the large-load tariffs, which put very large users on long-term contracts with exit fees, protect other customers from the cost of serving them.

FPL's response

FPL spokesperson Andrew Sutton said regulators got the decision right and noted the settlement was approved unanimously. He said it lets the company invest in Florida's growth and keep service reliable while holding bills as low as possible. He said it works out to an average annual residential bill increase of about 2 percent over its term. He called FPL's data center rules "one of the nation's strongest customer-protection frameworks."

When the commission approved the deal last year, FPL CEO Armando Pimentel called it a "win for our customers and a win for the entire state."

What it means for FPL customers

For a typical residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours a month in FPL's traditional service area, the 2026 bill rose from $134.14 to $136.64 under the settlement. Further increases are projected for 2027 through 2029. Customers in Northwest Florida, the former Gulf Power territory, saw a small drop in 2026, from $143.60 to $141.36, with increases to follow in later years.

Those figures reflect base rates. Fuel costs, storm charges and other items also show up on bills. FPL has also asked regulators for a temporary $3.48 monthly surcharge in 2027 to recover costs from Hurricane Isaias, which made landfall near Destin on Oct. 9. The company says lower fuel charges would more than offset it.

Even if the justices side with the consumer advocates, bills would not drop right away. A reversal would send the case back to the commission. The settlement's rates would then have to be justified again, issue by issue.

A court that has questioned the commission before

The appeal reaches a court that has criticized the commission before. In a separate 2024 case, then-Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz called the commission a "black box," faulting regulators for not explaining why they grant rate hikes that utilities request. Trierweiler's filing asks the justices to take that criticism further, by deciding whether a settlement signed mostly by large business customers can stand in for the full review the law calls for.

What's next

FPL and the Public Service Commission will file answer briefs, and the court will decide whether to hear oral argument. Until it rules, FPL customers keep paying the approved rates, and the 2027 step increase is scheduled to take effect in January. The decision could also shape how Duke Energy Florida, Tampa Electric and other utilities handle data center growth, which state regulators and lawmakers are still working out.