Where do I actually find these plans?

The Florida Public Service Commission posts Ten-Year Site Plans and its review reports on its website. You can read your own utility's filing and the commission's assessment of it side by side.

Does the FPSC approving a plan mean the solar gets built?

No. The commission marks a plan suitable or unsuitable, but that is a review of adequacy, not a permit. Actual plants need separate approval, and the plans change from year to year.

Why hedge every number in the plan?

Because they are ten-year forecasts. Peak demand, fuel prices, and build schedules all shift, so a figure that looks precise is really an estimate. Treat round goals as goals.

How is this different from the storm charge on my bill?

The Ten-Year Site Plan is about generation, the plants that make the power. Storm hardening, including the line item some customers see, moves through a separate FPSC docket about poles, wires, and undergrounding.

The plan every Florida utility has to file: reading the Ten-Year Site Plans

I. What the plan is, and what it is not

A Ten-Year Site Plan is a forecast, filed under state law (Florida Statutes section 186.801) usually by about April 1 each year. Inside, a utility lays out its projected peak demand (the single hour of highest electricity use, usually a hot August afternoon or a rare hard freeze), its fuel mix, and the specific generating units it plans to build or retire. Florida Power and Light, Duke Energy Florida, and Tampa Electric file the largest ones, and several municipal utilities and cooperatives file as well.

Here is the catch. The plan is a statement of intent, not a construction permit, and a line on a ten-year forecast can quietly disappear in next year's filing. A new plant still has to clear separate review before it is built. Treat the plan as a direction rather than a guarantee, and you will read it correctly.

II. Reading the numbers without being fooled

Headline figures are forecasts stretched a decade out, so they drift. FPL has said for years that it aims to install on the order of 30 million solar panels across the state by 2030, a round number worth treating as a goal rather than a meter reading. The honest move is to compare each year's plan against the one before it, and against what the ground actually shows.

Several things reward a close look. Watch whether planned solar megawatts keep showing up as built capacity in federal generation data, whether battery storage grows from a rounding error into real numbers, and how much new natural gas sits beside the solar. If the gas keeps expanding while the solar slips, the plan is telling you something the brochure will not.

III. Who files, and what each is promising

Florida Power and Light is the giant, serving much of the coast and the southeast, with large solar centers in places like Manatee and DeSoto counties and a fleet that still leans on natural gas. Duke Energy Florida covers a swath of the north and central peninsula around the old Crystal River site. Tampa Electric runs Big Bend on Tampa Bay and has built solar out in Polk County.

Municipal utilities and cooperatives matter more than their size suggests. JEA in Jacksonville, the Orlando Utilities Commission, Seminole Electric, and smaller players such as Florida Public Utilities each file or contribute, and their choices shape whole regions. Storm hardening runs alongside all of this in a separate docket, the Storm Protection Plan, where utilities lay out undergrounding and pole upgrades after a decade of hurricanes.

IV. Worth watching this month

1. The FPSC typically posts its staff review reports on the year's Ten-Year Site Plans in the second half of the year, so check the commission's site for the latest adequacy findings.

2. The next round of plans is due around April 1, 2027, which is the moment to compare fresh forecasts against this year's, though the filing itself is routine.

3. Duke and FPL storm protection plan dockets move on their own schedule at the FPSC, and these are the filings that actually touch your reliability and your bill.

4. Federal generation data for Florida updates through the year, so watch whether the solar share of the state's power keeps climbing toward the utilities' stated goals.

5. Atlantic hurricane season ends November 30, a routine date, but a quiet season or a brutal one shapes how hard the storm-hardening argument lands in the next filings.

Florida Public Service Commission, Ten-Year Site Plans, The state regulator's own page, where the utility filings and the commission's review reports are posted for the public to read., www.floridapsc.com/ElectricNaturalGas/TenYearSitePlans
U.S. Energy Information Administration, Florida State Profile, Federal government data on Florida's actual generation and fuel mix, useful for checking a plan's promises against what got built., www.eia.gov/state/?sid=FL
NOAA National Hurricane Center, Federal government source for Atlantic hurricane season tracking, the backdrop to Florida's storm-hardening and reliability filings., www.nhc.noaa.gov
Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Office of Energy, State government office with Florida energy data and program information that puts utility plans in context., floridadep.gov/energy
Florida Power and Light, clean energy and solar, The largest utility's own page describing its solar build plans, the goals you can hold against its filings., www.fpl.com/clean-energy/solar.html
Duke Energy Florida, Duke's Florida page covering its service territory and generation plans for the north and central peninsula., www.duke-energy.com/our-company/about-us/florida