Before the ceremonial switch was flipped on June 1, 2005, the city of Winter Park, Florida, had been on a long journey in their effort to control its own electric utility.
In the years prior to municipalization, residents of the Central Florida city had long dealt with prolonged outages, frequent interruptions, and little indication from the investor-owned Florida Power (now Duke Energy) that these problems would improve. Meanwhile, residents worried that Winter Park’s beloved tree-lined streets were being destroyed by what they saw as overly aggressive outside vegetation management that showed little regard for the city’s aesthetics.
Many Winter Park residents worked in and had friends and colleagues who lived in areas served by the Orlando Utilities Commission, the neighboring public power utility, and they saw how much more reliable their electric service could be.
When its franchise agreement with Florida Power was close to expiring, city leaders began looking for assurances that steps would be taken to improve services. The negotiation processes led Winter Park to decline renewing its agreement in 2001 and begin formally exploring whether the city could take ownership of its electric utility.
Several other Florida cities considered municipalization around the same time and had similar expiring franchise agreements that included a clause allowing the municipality to purchase its local assets at the contract’s close.
Jamie England, Winter Park’s electric director, worked at the investor-owned utility before the changeover. He said the general belief inside Florida Power was that the municipalization effort would be abandoned within two years.
As city leaders began preparing for municipalization — overseeing a feasibility study, gauging valuation, and setting up a voter referendum — the desire for community ownership and higher reliability remained strong. Still, leaders were uncertain what the outcome of the vote would be, given the marketing effort and significant spending by the incumbent IOU to retain control. In the 2003 vote, municipalization, was favored 69%-31%. Winter Park was the only Florida city that moved ahead with public power in the 2000s.
Randy Knight, city manager for Winter Park, recalled that all the pieces were in the right place for municipalization to move forward. Critically, he said it had been important that the city commissioners were willing to take the risk in advocating for community ownership. All those commissioners were able to get reelected amid opposition from the incumbent.
“We saw cities around us where the city manager after the election was asked to go elsewhere, and the attempt dropped,” he said.
Delivering Results
Delivering on Winter Park residents’ expectations after the vote has been a singular focus over the past 20 years.
“One of the things we promised when we bought the system is we’re going to put it all underground,” said Knight, who noted that more than 80% of the city’s distribution lines are now underground. “To me, the very exciting part is, we’ve done it with most of the time lower rates than our predecessor.”
In 2023, Winter Park’s average electric rates were 24% lower than Duke Energy Florida’s. The utility analyzed the costs of the undergrounding effort, which has been about $65 million, against the total savings the city and residents have seen from lower bills in the past two decades and estimated that Winter Park has seen about a $70 million net positive in savings for the effort.
Knight noted there has been some confusion among residents about the timeline for getting to 100% underground. The utility’s initial estimate was for the work to be done by 2026, but supply chain constraints stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic extended that timeline by as much as four years.
As for the city’s tree canopy, England said its vegetation management is on a 10-month cycle that takes extra precautions to maintain appropriate clearances without “butchering” the city’s signature trees.
Meanwhile, the difference in reliability speaks for itself. England proudly shared how the utility’s system average interruption duration index, or SAIDI, is now under 30 minutes. Outside of major events, Duke Energy Florida’s SAIDI in 2023 was 83 minutes.
England shared that there had been 278 customers without power after Hurricane Milton swept through the area in 2024, and nearly all had their power back within 12 hours.
“Some would say we didn’t get the brunt of the storm, but Duke spent the better part of the week restoring power to customers in the area,” he said.
Keeping Momentum
Winter Park is one of 21 public power utilities that have been formed since 2000, and Knight said that city leaders often hear from other cities considering making the switch. He said he enjoys sharing with other community leaders what it has been like to build the utility from scratch in modern times.
While there has been a lot to learn, Knight sees positives in being a younger utility.
“It’s almost easier in that we don’t have 50, 60, 70 years of doing it a different way,” he said. “It is hard for a utility that has been around for a while to change its focus or its revenue model, because it is all committed.”
“The feasibility study will almost always say [municipalization] works. [But you’ve] got to have a big reason to do it,” added Knight. “It’s great if your community is behind the why… and willing to take the risk. You have to have a strong reason that will survive the elections.”
Knight also noted that it will be harder for communities to exit franchise agreements that do not contain a buyout clause.
“You’d be hard pressed to find anyone today that says it was a mistake,” Knight said. Winter Park created a documentary marking its 20 years, which includes a testimony from someone who voted against municipalization but has since become pleased with the switch.
The residents who do have complaints often live in parts of the city annexed since the agreement. Winter Park doesn’t have the right to bring those areas onto its municipal electric system, said Knight. That currently comprises of about 2,000 city residents who cannot be served by Winter Park Electric despite living in the new city limits.
“We set the bar high — at the point where most municipalities are not going to be able to do it,” England said, explaining that the extensive undergrounding has taken unique dedication from across the community. “Maintaining that momentum is a huge challenge.”
Once the undergrounding work is finally completed, Knight said it will be up to the community to decide what the utility focuses on next, which could be decorative, smart street lighting, or increased renewable energy options that fit with the system and city’s energy goals.
England added that Winter Park has increasingly explored how it might implement technologies that sustain its reliability edge, including an outage management system that can send automatic alerts to customers or advanced substation monitoring devices that help with preventive maintenance.
