By Alexandra Martinez at Prism

Amid rising electric bills, the campaign is collecting signatures for a ballot question on whether St. Petersburg, Florida, should establish public power

A coalition of environmental and youth organizations began a two-year effort to put a question about the future of St. Petersburg, Florida’s electric system directly before voters in the 2028 general election.

The newly launched Public Power St. Pete campaign is collecting signatures to place a proposed city charter amendment on the November 2028 ballot that would allow voters to decide whether St. Petersburg should establish its own municipal electric utility and replace Duke Energy as the city’s electricity provider.

The city is also conducting its own study to evaluate energy options after its agreement with Duke expired over the summer (Duke continues to provide electricity in the meantime). The campaign also comes during a fraught time for climate politics, as Florida removed the words “climate change” from state statutes, banned wind energy, and passed legislation to expand gas pipelines.

Rising bills put pressure on residents

In January, St. Petersburg issued a request for proposals for a feasibility study examining the financial and legal implications of establishing a city-owned utility. The study also includes an optional examination of a municipal utility powered entirely by renewable energy.

“We are a much more clean, energy-focused, and affordability-focused municipal structure than what exists in Florida today,” Raymer Maguire, vice president of campaigns for the climate-focused CLEO Institute, told Prism.

Maguire, who is also a member of Public Power St. Pete’s executive committee, said the effort aimed to make electricity more affordable, reduce pollution, and increase local control in decisions such as putting power lines underground or opposing data centers that may cause energy rates to rise.

The proposed charter amendment would create a five-member governing board for a municipal utility. According to campaign organizers, St. Petersburg voters would elect three members and appoint two to the City Council. Maguire said they need approximately 16,200 valid signatures to qualify the measure for the 2028 ballot.

The case for a city-owned utility

One of the biggest questions facing the proposal is how much it would cost for St. Petersburg to acquire and operate Duke’s local distribution system. A preliminary analysis commissioned by Duke Energy and released in September estimated that acquiring Duke’s operations within the city could cost between $2.75 billion and $4.1 billion, depending on the assumed transaction date.

In a statement to Prism, Ana Gibbs, a Duke Energy spokesperson, said the study, conducted by Concentric Energy Advisors, “makes clear a government takeover of St. Petersburg’s electric service is unaffordable and irresponsible.”

Meanwhile, supporters of public power point to municipal utilities elsewhere in Florida as evidence that publicly owned systems can operate at competitive rates. The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services lists 35 municipally owned electric companies statewide, alongside five investor-owned electric companies and 18 rural electric cooperatives.

Public Power St. Pete organizers frequently cite nearby Winter Park as a model. Winter Park completed its transition to a municipal electric utility in 2005 after voters approved purchasing the city’s electric system from Progress Energy. According to Winter Park’s city manager, its electric rates remain below the Florida municipal average while the city continues a long-term effort to put its electrical system underground.

Winter Park’s 2026 budget projects electric rates approximately 33% below Duke Energy’s rates and 9% below the statewide municipal average. The city is also budgeting approximately $9.2 million annually for undergrounding.

Another Florida city did not have as much luck with the idea of public power. Clearwater rejected the municipalization push after spending two years examining the feasibility and later appraising Duke’s local distribution system. The anti-municipalization campaign’s funding was surrounded by controversy. The Tampa Bay Times reported in February that groups called the St. Pete Energy Alliance and Clearwater Energy Alliance campaigned against city-owned utilities while providing limited information about their funding. The Times later reported connections between the Florida campaigns and a political operative who had worked on efforts opposing public power elsewhere.

What public power could mean

Katina Rentas Negrón, a climate justice campaigner with Florida Rising, said organizers have heard from residents struggling to keep up with electricity bills while also paying for food, medication, and other necessities. She said Public Power St. Pete wants residents to have a greater role in decisions that directly affect household costs.

“This is not a luxury,” said Rentas Negrón. “Electricity is very much a need. We can’t afford to have folks having their power being cut off because that becomes a public health issue.”

The Florida Municipal Electric Association reported in June 2025 that average bills among Florida’s public-power utilities were $33.79 lower than the average bills of other utilities at 1,000 kilowatt-hours, although bill comparisons vary by utility and customer category.

St. Petersburg was the first city in Florida to set a 100% clean energy goal by 2035. Maguire said public power is more likely to achieve that goal than Duke Energy.

“Duke Energy gets 90% of its electricity from burning gas or coal,” Maguire said. “They are an extremely dirty and polluting utility, and they essentially get to do that polluting for free because it’s the young people today that are going to deal with a warmer environment and stronger storms and more flooding in the decades to come.”

Anamika Naidu, a 22-year-old Tampa Bay organizer with Florida Youth Action Fund, said the campaign has attracted young people concerned about energy costs and the broader affordability of living in St. Petersburg. Naidu, who grew up in St. Petersburg, said she has watched young people struggle to remain in the city as living costs rise.

“Young people feel very disillusioned with our two-party system,” Naidu said. “These issue-based localized campaigns are a really great way for young people to be able to reclaim some of that power and tap back into a democracy that they have been left behind by.”

Naidu hopes their work can establish a blueprint for other municipalities across Florida to emulate. With 75% of Florida residents living in a county with a charter, organizers believe they could replicate the charter amendment process elsewhere.

“We are trying to build a Florida that works for us and not for corporations,” Naidu said, adding that if issues arise, it is harder to hold a private corporation like Duke accountable compared with the city.

Maguire is also calling for reform of the Florida Public Service Commission, arguing that the current process for selecting utility regulators can be politically influenced by utility companies’ campaign contributions. Maguire cited a CLEO Institute report that found that Florida’s four major investor-owned utilities spent more than $80 million on campaigns and lobbying over four election cycles.

Public Power St. Pete aims to create a genuinely independent commission that can hold utilities accountable, organizers said. The coalition to gather signatures for the ballot initiative includes The CLEO Institute, Florida Rising, Youth Action Fund, People Power for Florida, Dump Duke, and the Sierra Club’s Suncoast Chapter.

“We’re not relying on an expensive petition firm, for example, to collect signatures,” said Gianna Hutton Gonzalez, a clean-energy campaign coordinator and policy analyst with The CLEO Institute. “We’re mobilizing neighbors in St. Petersburg, and that’s really at the heart of this campaign on giving voters a choice for the first time ever and a say in their energy future.”

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