As Tropical Storm Fay barreled down the Florida coast in August 2008, residents across the state boarded up their windows, sandbagged their lawns, and raided grocery stores. For many, Fay was a storm they had seen tens of times, just another low pressure system brewed by warm Caribbean waters. After all, it was just a tropical storm, not even a hurricane. Some 15,000 would lose power during Fay, a small blip in meteorological history, but for one small town north of Orlando, Fay was unique.
The nearly 30,000 residents of Winter Park saw the storm differently, a bold introduction to the world of a plan set in motion three years earlier. A plan for power.
In 1927, the city of Winter Park sold its public utility, its soul, to what eventually became the Florida Power Corporation, an investor-run, private company. Florida Power changed hands over the years, eventually bought by Progress Energy, which raised corporate profits while throttling service, maligning the retirees that populate Winter Park. By the early 2000s, residents faced an average of 360 minutes without power annually and the city’s grid was largely above ground — dangerously exposed to ever-strengthening summer storms.
In 2005, 78 years after they gave up their power, citizens took it back, voting to fund a $43 million advance and re-establish a public utility. When Fay hit, just 3,000 of the 14,000 city customers lost power — all back online within two days. Meanwhile, 12,000 remained powerless across Florida.
Winter Park is an outlier, a town that took the public plunge, but one seeing incredible benefits. Its residents joined the 49 million serviced by public utilities across the United States, now over one in seven users. The city owns the poles and wires its residents rely on, with a dedicated team of 16 lineworkers ready to keep the power on. Unlike a private utility provider — whose profits are divided between executives and shareholders — Winter Park’s utility reinvests the $48 million in annual revenue it generates back into the community, shepherded by its board, appointed by the citizen-elected city commission.
This August, the city reached a milestone, successfully burying 75% of its power lines, and has seen yearly outage times reduced to under an hour. Customers see rates 12% lower than for those serviced by private Duke Energy.
As climate change worsens, challenging our aging grid, a once-extreme conversation on recapturing power from private providers has been recharged. Boulder, Colorado has spent a decade pursuing its own public utility, while New York State’s Build Public Renewables Act, if passed, will mandate the New York Power Authority to provide 100% clean electricity by 2035, a strong push for a greener future.
In Maine, former State Rep. Seth Berry is leading the charge to place the Pine Tree State as the vanguard of the public power transition. His initiative — Pine Tree Power — is on the ballot for residents in November, asking voters whether they wish to purchase assets from Maine’s two private utilities to form a new, state-wide cooperative. Berry views this project as essential, not only to a green future, but to his constituents of today, suffering from high energy costs and rising rates.
“People at or below the federal poverty line,” he says, pay “a quarter of their income on average for energy,” citing a 2019 study the group commissioned.
With energy prices higher today than back then, Berry estimates that share is now closer to 35%, leaving less money for healthcare, car insurance and enjoying Maine’s fall forests of fall — a kaleidoscope of colors painted across the treeline. This vote comes a year after nearly 10% of customers in the state were disconnected, unable to pay their energy bills. Pine Tree Power is estimated to save consumers $367 annually on electricity, putting more food on the table for millions of Mariners.
If passed, the initiative would become just the second statewide public utility and the first created by popular support. Groups like Ann Arbor for Public Power, representing citizens pushing for an electricity cooperative in Ann Arbor, Michigan, have taken notice.
“If they [pass Pine Tree Power], that will set off a domino chain across this country,” said Ann Arbor for Public Power President Greg Woodring.
He hopes Ann Arbor will be that next domino to fall, solving similar reliability issues that residents of Winter Park faced two decades ago. Yet, much like other cities that have explored switching, Ann Arbor has seen numerous challenges slowing progress, even from its own citizens.
To State Senator Jeff Irwin, whose district covers Ann Arbor, the city’s biggest problem is a “lack of belief,” residents wary of a wholesale rethink of how they receive power. For Irwin, consensus-building is key, as is dialogue.
“That is why it is so important to talk to our couple of neighbors,” Irwin said. “When someone says. ‘I do not know if that is possible,’ we say ‘yeah it is.’”
And slowly, ever so slowly, he believes, the tide will turn, citizens of Ann Arbor slowly realizing this is not just a fight over who provides electricity, but over power.
Our green transition is incredibly uncertain, filled with so many challenges to overcome, so many things to do. But electricity and a reliable grid are certain to illuminate the dark, unknown road into the future.
“Poles and wires,” Berry believes, “are the lifeline to a livable planet,” the physical infrastructure powering our society.
Today, a perfect storm, much like Tropical Storm Fay, exists in the U.S. as governments look for pathways to decarbonize and residents struggle with rising electricity bills. And many, like Winter Park, like Ann Arbor and Maine, are pushing to rekindle a lost era of public power in a new era of sustainability. To reconnect with their planet, make it livable for all — one pole, one wire and one charge of power at a time.
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