October 2, 2026 · 3 min
The utility on the bill, from Daytona to Sarasota
FPL, Duke, TECO, and a string of municipal utilities do not pay for solar the same way. The meter decides.
A statewide “Florida solar payback” is a blurry average of different companies. Along this corridor the company changes every couple of counties, and sometimes inside one city.
Who usually serves the house
- Daytona Beach and Ormond Beach: Florida Power & Light
- New Smyrna Beach: often the Utilities Commission, not FPL
- Deltona and DeLand: Duke Energy Florida
- Orlando: OUC in much of the city, Duke in a lot of the county
- Winter Park: the city’s own electric utility for many addresses
- Kissimmee: Kissimmee Utility Authority in much of the city
- Clermont: SECO Energy is the common cooperative
- Lakeland: Lakeland Electric inside the city
- Tampa and Brandon: Tampa Electric
- St. Petersburg and Clearwater: Duke Energy Florida
- Bradenton and Sarasota: Florida Power & Light
“Usually” is doing work in that list. A street can sit on the other side of a territory line. Open the bill. The logo at the top is the model.
Why it changes the calculator
Your savings are mostly the energy charge you no longer buy, plus any credit for kilowatt-hours you export. Fuel riders, franchise fees, and storm charges move, and they are not all avoided by solar. If the export credit is below the retail energy rate, a house that sends most of its solar to the grid saves less than a house that uses it to run the air conditioner at noon. That is the self-use and export sliders on the solar calculator.
Municipal utilities — OUC, KUA, Lakeland Electric, New Smyrna, Winter Park — publish their own rules. Do not paste an FPL net-metering paragraph onto a Lakeland bill.
What we will not do
We will not quote a single payback for “Central Florida solar.” We will build the array on a roof that can hold it, and we will show the planning math with the utility named. The rates inside the calculator are stand-ins so the page is usable before you find your tariff sheet. Replace them with the energy rate from your bill if you have it.
The map of cities is the service area index. The credit that people still ask for is explained in solar math in 2026.