Beginning in November, OUC estimates about 50% of customers will see their bills decrease, about 30% will see an increase of up to $3 per month, and the remaining customers could pay an average of $7 more per month.
Nearly 250,000 Orlando Utilities Commission customers will be impacted by the public power company’s PeakShift rate program on their electric bills.
The plan, which was approved by the OUC Board in December of 2024, aims to encourage its customers to shift their electric consumption habits to off-peak hours, while reducing the buy-back rates to residential solar users on the OUC grid.
The new rate plan will lower the hourly kilowatt rate residents pay by one cent while placing the resident into one of three payment tiers that add monthly flat fees of $5, $10, or $15 based on the customer’s peak 15 minutes of usage from the previous month.
Jenise Osani, vice president of customer experience and sales for OUC, says the purpose of the program is to spread the power demand across the clock more evenly, lowering rates for all OUC users.
“We're asking customers to stagger, not stack, when they're using energy,” Osani said. “If a customer can say wash their dishes at a different time than they run their dryer or their washer or perhaps take a heated shower, if they can stagger those times and are increasing the actual demand at a single moment, they will fall into a lower tier which will help them keep their rates lower.”
Osani says the program is not generating additional revenue for OUC, rather it’s just charging customers differently.
When OUC proposed the PeakShift program in 2024, it was met with criticism that it was a surge pricing program that would charge users more during collective peak periods such as August when people maximize their air conditioning use. Advocates for low-income communities argue that variable rate structures disproportionately impact residents living on the economic margins.
“The way that I understand it is they just want to be able to charge more when people use electricity when they most need it which is ridiculous. I mean we should be able to use electricity when we need it,” said Orlando city commissioner Patty Sheehan.
Commissioner Sheehan has been vocal in her opposition to OUC’s PeakShift program since it was proposed two years ago. She says she can see who will be impacted by the rate change simply by driving through the communities in her district.
“A lot of people have these terrible window units,” she said. “They're usually in rentals and so those are the people that can least afford to deal with an uptick in power.”
Heaven Campbell is senior Florida program director for Solar United Neighbors, a non-profit advocating for expanded and equitable solar energy access. Campbell understands the need to spread the electricity demand across the day, but feels OUC’s PeakShift is the wrong approach.
“All of the research on any onerous programs, especially for our necessary services like utilities, the most vulnerable are going to be the most impacted. So that's your non-native English speakers, your income constrained,” she said.
Osani said OUC’s analysis found that many low-income customers would pay the same or less under the PeakShift plan, which she said would also help stabilize bills from month to month.
Changes to solar power
When homeowners install rooftop solar, they can send excess electricity back to the grid. OUC credits them for that power.
Another leg of the PeakShift program is the TruNet Solar plan, which reduces the price at which OUC buys back excess energy from residential solar owners from about 11 cents per kilowatt hour to around 4 cents. Homeowners that filed applications before June 30, 2025, will still receive the 11-cent rate, but those who didn’t and new solar owners will get the reduced rate.
This rate shift has faced criticism as energy buyback programs are a popular selling point for the solar industry.
Osani acknowledged that lowering the credit homeowners receive for excess rooftop solar power could make solar systems harder to sell. She said customers can still save by using the electricity their panels generate and storing excess power in batteries for later use. Osani says OUC was previously crediting some customers at the full retail electricity rate, which is more expensive than what OUC pays for utility-scale solar.
Raymer Maguire, vice president of campaigns with the CLEO Institute, a Miami-based climate advocacy 501(c)(3), raises concerns that reducing the buyback rates could disincentivize homeowners from investing in solar panels.
“If we want to lower electricity costs for OUC customers and Orlando residents in the long term, the faster we can speed up this transition away from fossil fuels which require fuel costs, towards renewables which don't have a fuel cost, is really important to achieve affordability,” Maguire said.
Orlando city commissioner Sheehan, a solar panel owner herself, feels OUC is shortchanging residential solar power owners who shoulder the overhead of energy generation themselves.
November will be the first month OUC customers may see a change in their billing
