The Orlando Utilities Commission must rethink low-income program

No family should ever be forced to choose between paying their energy bill and the purchase of essential needs like food and medicine. The lost wages and jobs from the COVID-19 crisis are making it harder for low income people to pay already-high Orlando Utilities Commission energy bills. Low-income families face a particularly high energy burden as they pay a disproportionately higher share of their income on energy.

According to OUC, they have one of the highest percentages of low-income customers of any major utility in Florida with over 33% — that’s more than 72,000 families earning less than $35,000 in annual income. Yet today OUC is asking for approval from the Florida Public Service Commission — the body that sets conservation goals for the big power companies — for a proposed low-income program which would be the weakest program in the state.

Reaching only six customers last year and projected to reach only 73 customers a year for the next five, OUC’s proposed program will reach less than 1% of all its low-income customers over a five-year period. That’s a failure. OUC can and must do better.

To keep homes safe, comfortable and secure, families continue to have power, especially as we head into the brutal heat of summer. According to the Energy Information Agency, more than a quarter (27%) of the energy consumed in Florida homes is for air conditioning — more than four times the national average. To its credit, OUC has provided short-term relief by suspending electricity disconnections during the current crisis. But the problem of unaffordable electricity bills runs so much deeper.

The problem of high energy bills is compounded by Florida’s historical underperformance on helping customers reduce energy bills. OUC has most recently argued for “zero” energy efficiency goals before the PSC. Yet energy efficiency programs especially, targeting low-income families, can provide real value to customers by helping them reduce energy and save money on bills, it is a win-win for OUC as well because efficiency is the cheapest, quickest and cleanest way to meet energy demands and help the City’s clean energy goals. Unfortunately, OUC’s plan ignores the needs of its most vulnerable customers.

The low-income program’s lack of ambition is a fatal flaw. OUC is the only utility making families pay in order to participate in the program. Moreover, if you’re a lowincome customer and have fallen behind on your power bill, you are shut out of the program, isn’t the idea of low-income program to help those most in need? Also,

OUC is the only major utility program to limit its program to singlefamily homes. Most of its customers live in multifamily dwellings, why shut them out?

OUC’s weak showing stands in sharp contrast to other large power providers. Duke Energy Florida, is aiming to reach over 5% of its low-income families with two low-income programs and Tampa Electric is planning to reach 25% of its low-income population.

This begs the question, why would the city of Orlando, which owns OUC and has committed to 100% renewable energy by 2050, not embrace helping customers cut waste as part of its efforts to reach its goal? The City or Orlando has also pledged to address environmental justice challenges as part of its clean-energy commitment.

OUC’s plan does not get us there.

On the plan coming before the Florida Public Service Commission, the City should send OUC back to the drawing board. And later this summer, when OUC comes before the City of Orlando with its 20-year resource plan for helping the city meet its clean energy goal, that plan should be rejected if it doesn’t meaningfully capture energy savings for customers, especially those most vulnerable.