Florida recognizes this, which is why the state’s major utilities are important teammates in the game of economic development. Historically, utilities have helped local communities set up economic development councils and initiatives to support them. But in recent years, those relationships have become more formalized, with utilities using executives and their economic development officers to create more opportunities.
“We strive to be a sought-after resource for our local communities and to add value to their efforts to create high-wage jobs,” says Scarlett Phaneuf, economic development representative for PowerSouth Energy Cooperative in Northwest Florida.
And with ever-increasing power needs in certain industries — data centers and artificial intelligence, for example — it is even more important to include utilities from the earliest stages of any project.
By encouraging employees to join local economic boards and executive committees, utilities are able to stay on top of the needs of targeted industries. “These discussions also help us remain nimble and responsive to serve existing industries, new development patterns and areas of growth,” says Cherie Jacobs, spokesperson for Tampa Electric.
Utilities can also play a strategic role in connecting businesses with development opportunities.
Florida Power & Light, for example, operates its Florida First Sites program, which highlights project-ready industrial sites, in consultation with local developers and a national site selection firm. Before being included in the growing inventory, sites are evaluated for a range of factors, including ownership, available utilities, permitting, site characteristics and nearby workforce.
The company also operates the WonderFL website, a labor recruiting resource that offers information about each of the state’s distinct regions, including education and training, target industries, housing and quality of life.
Utilities are also involved in project management. Duke Energy’s economic development team, for example, participates in local development efforts, including site visits, responses to requests for proposals (RFPs) and incentives negotiations. Since 2001, those collaborative efforts have helped recruit or encourage the expansion of more than 350 firms, said Aly Raschid, spokesperson for Duke Energy Florida.
Hurricane Hardening
You can’t talk about doing business in Florida without acknowledging the hurricane-shaped elephant in the room. And while some areas of the state are clearly more vulnerable than others, everyone faces some risk of being without power.
Although the 2025 storm season was less severe than the year before, Florida’s utilities remain under constant pressure to be prepared for increasingly unpredictable weather. Around Florida, utilities are striving to make the power grid more resilient, while also cutting the time customers spend in the dark.
Perhaps the most noticeable are ongoing efforts to protect powerlines. Duke Energy has moved more than half of its power lines underground. The utility, like others, is also replacing wooden transmission poles with steel or concrete poles and is reinforcing substations to reduce risks presented by flooding and other severe weather events.
Technological improvements are also reducing the downtime from power outages.
Tampa Electric, for example, uses a smart, self-healing technology that the company compares to the GPS navigation system used by your phone. The power grid can identify potential power roadblocks and reroute the flow of electricity to avoid them.
Creating Clean Energy
Building more efficient power grids also involves investing in alternative, clean energy projects that lower fuel costs and increase the diversity of energy sources.
At Florida Power, battery storage has become a key component of the utility’s efforts to build a more reliable energy grid, even in bad weather. Among the company’s projects is the Manatee Energy Storage Center in Parrish. The company says the site — the size of 30 football fields — has the same charging capacity as 100 million iPhone batteries. Solar-powered sites like this are ready to send power into the grid when needed.
Technological advances are boosting the promise of these massive batteries, which generally provide customers power for two to four hours. Duke Energy recently opened its Suwanee Battery storage system, using non-lithium technology with the potential to offering eight hours of backup power.
The company, like others, is also venturing into hydrogen power, with a pilot project in DeBary, adjacent to an existing solar plant. The system, powered by solar energy, will separate water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen atoms. The oxygen will be released into the atmosphere, while the hydrogen will be stored for energy during times when demand is high.
“This is the first demonstration project in the U.S. to successfully create clean energy using an end-to-end system to produce, store and combust 100 percent green hydrogen,” says Raschid, from Duke.
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