Almost 2.3 mil across Florida offline due to Milton, weakening energy demand, prices

Almost 2.3 million Florida electricity customers remained without service around 3:30 pm ET Oct. 11 in the wake of Hurricane Milton, and utilities warned that repairs could take several days, which would tend to weaken energy demand and prices.

“Due to the extensive wind and flood damage, we estimate that power restoration will take at least seven days,” Lakeland Electric said in a message on its outage web page. “Some parts of our system are severely affected by flooding, which may cause delays in our restoration efforts.”

Lakeland Electric serves the city of Lakeland, about 35 miles east of Tampa, Florida, and about 80 miles northeast of where Milton made landfall in Sarasota County, Florida. As of about 3 pm ET, Lakeland Electric had more than 31,000 customers offline, about 22.5% of its 138,664 customers normally served.

The US Energy Information Administration forecast load to peak at less than 30 GW on Oct. 11, down 14.4 GW, or 31.2%, from Oct. 4’s peak of 44.3 GW. S&P Global Commodity Insights estimates natural gas power burn in the Southeast to be less than 4.9 Bcf Oct. 11, down 2.7 Bcf, or 33% from Oct. 4’s 7.6 Bcf.

In addition to power system outages, milder temperatures may be a factor in weaker energy demand, as CustomWeather forecast Florida’s population-weighted temperatures to average 74 degrees F Oct. 11, down 4.5% from the normal average of 77.5 F.

Energy markets weaken

Platts assessed Florida day-ahead on-peak bilaterals at $31/MWh for Oct. 11 delivery, down $21.75, or 41.2% from Oct. 4’s $52.75/MWh and down $29.19, or 48.5%, from the average of $60.19/MWh for that date for the years 2019-2023. Platts is part of Commodity Insights. It had a premium of just 9 cents/MMBtu to the benchmark Henry Hub price, compared with a premium of 57 cents for Oct. 4 flows.

Platts assessed the weekend on-peak package at $28.50/MWh for delivery Oct. 12-13, down $12, or 29.6%, from Oct. 5-6’s $40.50/MWh and down $27.03, or 46.6%, from the 2019-2023 average of $55.53/MWh for those dates.

Platts assessed the day-ahead on-peak package for delivery Oct. 14 at $33/MWh, down $13.50, or 29%, from Oct. 7’s $46.50/MWh and down $17.88, or 35.1%, from the average of $50.88/MWh for that date 2019-2023.

Platts assessed Florida Gas Zone 3 spot values at $2.245/MMBtu for delivery Oct. 12-14. Which is down 60 cents, or 21.1%, from the $2.845/MMBtu assessment for the previous weekend of Oct. 5-7.

Restoration progresses

The utility with the largest number of customers offline Oct. 11 was Duke Energy Florida, which has about 16,000 people working on service restoration for about 826,000 customers offline – 41.4% of the total -- as of about 3 pm ET Oct. 11.

The company said Oct. 11 most customers who can receive power will do so by the following times:

• Oct. 13, 11:59 pm ET: Brevard, Citrus, Hernando, Highlands, Lake, Marion, Orange, Osceola, Polk, Seminole, Sumter and Volusia counties
• Oct. 15, 11:59 pm ET: Pasco and Pinellas counties

“We want to alleviate our customers’ concerns and reassure them that they’ll have their power back on within days – not weeks,” said Todd Fountain, Duke Energy Florida storm director. “We thank our team for their hard work and commitment to meeting these estimated times of restoration, our local officials and first responders for their support and our customers for their continued patience.”

Florida Power & Light had the second-largest total offline at almost 670,000, 12.5% of the total, round 3 pm ET Oct. 11.

“Florida Power & Light Company has already restored more than 1.3 million customers affected by Hurricane Milton,” the company said Oct. 11. “FPL is now targeting by the end of Monday to restore power to 90% of customers impacted by the Category 3 storm. FPL crews remain focused on customers in the areas hardest hit by Milton, including approximately 85,000 who experienced outages due to the unusually powerful tornados that touched down in the state and knocked out power.”

Tampa Electric had the third-largest total offline at almost 518,000 – 61.6% of the total -- as of about 3 pm ET Oct. 11.

“We began restoring power on Thursday at 7 am as soon as conditions allowed,” the company said on its outage website. “Within 24 hours, Tampa Electric had restored electricity to over 220,000 customers. Due to the storm’s impact, we cannot provide individual restoration times, but we will soon share an estimated date for power restoration for all customers who can safely receive it.”