Duke Energy Florida solar: rates, net metering and free quotes

Duke Energy Florida serves about 2 million customers across a 13,000-square-mile area that includes Pinellas County, parts of the Orlando area and much of Central and North Florida. Your installer applies to Duke to connect the system, and Duke installs a meter that tracks the power you send back as well as the power you use.

Duke Energy Florida net meters under the Florida Public Service Commission's rule (25-6.065). When your panels make more than your home is using, the extra goes to the grid and comes back as a kWh credit at the full retail rate. Credits you don't use in a month roll forward for up to 12 months; whatever is left at the end of the year is paid out at the utility's avoided cost, only a few cents per kWh. That's why installers size Florida systems to cover your yearly use, not more. See how Florida net metering works.

Storm costs and seasons. Duke added a charge of $33 per 1,000 kWh in March 2025 to recover the cost of Hurricanes Debby, Helene and Milton. It ended early, in February 2026, and with a seasonal cut from March and a smaller storm true-up from June through September, a 1,000 kWh bill fell by about $50, or 25%, from January 2026. In November 2026 regulators approved Duke's 2027 rates: a January 2027 bill for 1,000 kWh is about $33 lower than in January 2026 and about $0.95 lower than in December 2026, with a seasonal cut of about $10 more from March. See why Duke Energy Florida bills are so high.

The customer charge is $14.35 a month. Use above 1,000 kWh costs more in every season, so high-use homes get more from each kWh their panels make.

The estimate uses about 14.9¢ per kWh, from Duke's May 2026 bill for 1,000 kWh, and leaves out the $30 minimum bill that solar can't lower. It assumes $2.70 per watt with no rebate. Run your own numbers in the savings calculator.

Duke follows the same state size tiers as Florida's other big utilities:

• Tier 1, up to 10 kW (most homes): no application fee and no extra insurance required.
• Tier 2, over 10 kW up to 100 kW (large homes): up to $1 million of liability insurance, and an application fee.

Under the rule, Duke has 30 days to sign the interconnection agreement once your application is complete. Ask your installer how long permission to operate is taking in your area.

Duke reported 97,364 customer-owned solar and other renewable systems at the end of 2025, up from 89,710 a year earlier, with about 951 MW of capacity, in its annual report to the Public Service Commission. See Florida solar statistics.

Usually not for homeowners who can put panels on the roof. Clean Energy Connection charges $8.35 per kW a month for bill credits that start at about 4¢ per kWh and grow slowly, while rooftop solar offsets the full retail rate on every kWh it makes. It can make sense for a heavily shaded roof. See Clean Energy Connection vs. rooftop solar.

After Hurricane Helene in September 2024, Duke Energy Florida restored power to 95% of customers within 72 hours and completed about 800,000 restorations in all. The last neighborhoods can still wait days, which is the gap a battery fills. See why solar shuts off in a power outage.

Because Duke Energy Florida credits exports at the full retail rate, a battery adds little to your bill savings. Its job in Florida is backup power: grid-tied panels shut off in an outage, but a battery keeps essentials running and solar recharges it each sunny day until the grid comes back. One 13.5 kWh battery runs about $13,000 installed at recent South Florida prices, and we found no utility or state rebate for it. See solar battery backup for hurricanes.