Jacksonville council members weigh relief for high JEA bills as utility says it isn't ready for a hyperscale data center

Two Jacksonville City Council members will hold a public roundtable Thursday afternoon on how the city might help families struggling with unusually high JEA bills, a week after the city-owned utility's latest electric, water and sewer rate increases took effect. Council members Reggie Gaffney Jr. and Jimmy Peluso are exploring relief options, News4JAX reported, but who would qualify, how much help a household could get, and where the money would come from have not been decided.

The bill debate is unfolding alongside a second question about JEA's future load: whether Jacksonville could, or should, host a power-hungry hyperscale data center. At a separate City Hall meeting on Wednesday, JEA told residents it is not ready to serve one today, and Peluso floated a possible moratorium while the city studies the issue.

The roundtable on bill relief

The roundtable is scheduled for 4 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 8, in the Don Davis Room at Jacksonville City Hall. Gaffney described families being forced to choose between rent, gas and food, and said the details of any relief effort are not final. "We're going to have a roundtable dialogue," Gaffney told News4JAX, adding, "I'm not sure if legislation will come out of this."

Gaffney said identifying funding is a key step. "We've got to identify our revenue sources," he said, also raising the question of who could hold the money. The open questions he listed include eligibility, the size of any benefit, the funding source and how quickly aid could reach households. News4JAX did not report a specific position from Peluso on the relief proposal beyond his role in convening the discussion.

Why residents say bills are spiking

Public frustration built through September. A Jacksonville resident started a Change.org petition calling on JEA to lower utility rates after his mother received a roughly $500 bill when the family had expected something closer to $100 to $200, according to News4JAX. The petition had more than 3,500 signatures in late September and more than 5,000 by Oct. 7. The resident said the bill reflected normal usage and criticized what he called "fees on top of fees on top of fees." Another customer on a fixed income reported a $600 bill, the station reported.

News4JAX's reports did not include a JEA explanation for those specific bills, and the large bills residents described in September arrived before the newest rate increases took effect on Oct. 1. Residents have pointed to seasonal rate changes and summer usage; JEA, for its part, has pointed to rising costs across its system.

What changed on Oct. 1

JEA's new rates took effect Thursday, Oct. 1. The utility said the increases address a projected $107 million budget shortfall and cover rising operating costs, infrastructure improvements and reliability upgrades. The estimated monthly impact for an average residential customer, as reported by News4JAX, is below.

Actual impact depends on usage. In a statement in September, JEA said the new rates are needed to cover rising operating costs, aging infrastructure, growth in Northeast Florida, environmental requirements and existing financial obligations, including those tied to Plant Vogtle, the Georgia nuclear plant from which JEA is obligated to buy power. "We understand the pressure that higher costs can place on our customers and their household budgets," the utility said.

JEA also said lower projected fuel costs will offset part of the electric increase. A residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours a month is projected to pay about $8.70 less in October than in April, according to the utility. JEA pointed to natural gas prepayment agreements expected to save about $12 million a year and a fuel hedging program it says has saved more than $90 million since fiscal 2019. Water and sewer increases, by contrast, rise with usage. "We recognize this impact on our customers," JEA spokesperson Myers Vasquez said when the rates took effect.

Help JEA already offers

Customers who are behind can ask JEA for payment arrangements or extensions, and the utility says it offers financial assistance, free energy and water assessments, rebates and conservation tools. JEA also points customers to its bill estimator and the MyJEA app to track usage, with details at jea.com/assistance and jea.com/rates. Residents can call 211 to be connected with local assistance agencies. Any city program that comes out of Thursday's roundtable would be in addition to those options.

The data center question

On Wednesday, council members, JEA officials and city planners answered residents' questions about data centers at a public meeting convened by at-large Councilwoman Moné Holder. JEA says it has received about 50 inquiries about data centers, though none are under evaluation and the utility has not said who made them. JEA currently powers six data centers, none of them hyperscale, according to News4JAX.

Jordan Pope, JEA's interim chief administrator, said the utility is not ready to serve a hyperscale facility, which typically needs at least 50 megawatts, and would at minimum have to build a new substation. JEA is developing a new rate class for customers using 50 megawatts or more, with that work continuing into 2027. JEA spokeswoman Karen McAllister said the proposed tariff would go to the Florida Public Service Commission for review and then to the JEA Board of Directors, adding, "We will commit to ensuring that large-load customers pay for their own infrastructure."

City planners said a hyperscale data center would likely be treated as a light industrial use and go through the Planned Unit Development process. Peluso suggested the city consider a lower threshold, perhaps 25 or 30 megawatts instead of 50, proposed a possible moratorium while the city studies the issue, and suggested a working group of the City Council, the Planning Department and JEA to develop policy. Residents raised concerns about water use, pollution, noise and whether existing JEA customers, already facing higher rates, could end up paying for infrastructure upgrades.

Holder has said Jacksonville already has small and mid-scale data centers but no facilities of 50 megawatts or more, and that she believes none is planned, though she asked the Planning Department to confirm. Concerns she heard on the campaign trail came from "the Beaches to Baldwin," she told News4JAX.

What state law already requires

Florida's new data center law, Senate Bill 484, took effect July 1, 2026. It defines a large-scale data center as a single site with an anticipated monthly peak load of at least 50 megawatts and requires such customers to cover their full cost of service, including connection work, transmission, generation and infrastructure, so those costs are not shifted to other ratepayers. The law also tightens water permitting for large users and voids nondisclosure agreements that would keep data center project details from the public. Cities and counties keep their authority over land use, though the law gives them no blanket power to ban data centers outright. The Public Service Commission must propose implementing rules by March 1, 2027.

Elsewhere in Northeast Florida, Nassau County approved a 12-month moratorium in June on accepting or approving data center applications while a fact-finding committee studies the issue.

What's next

Thursday's 4 p.m. roundtable in the Don Davis Room is expected to shape whether any relief proposal moves forward and how it might be funded; Gaffney has said legislation may or may not follow. On data centers, any moratorium or working group would require further council action, and JEA's large-load rate class still needs Public Service Commission review and JEA board approval. Residents can follow both issues through City Council meeting notices at coj.net and JEA board meeting agendas at jea.com.