Florida’s Looming Power Shortage: What Lies Ahead

By 2030: Florida's electricity demand is projected to rise by 30–40% compared to 2023 levels—exceeding the national average of 25%. This positions Florida among the top three states for growth intensity. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
The news you need to start your day in the
bomb Beaches and the Treasure Ghost. This is the Brian
Mudsholl so Florida's living power shortage, taking a look at
what lies ahead. In Wednesday's Takeaways, I broke down an
ICF study that was recently released saying that you know what,
We've got a power problem in this country. That we
are going to need twenty five percent more power within

(00:25):
just the next five years, and that will exploit to
an eighty seventy eight percent increase in demand over the
next twenty five years. Because of the AI in crypto
boom and the big problem, we've only been generating new
power at a rate of one point seven percent per year,
not even half of the generation rate that's necessary to
keep pace with the demand because of the growth of AI.

(00:48):
So I wanted to drill down in Florida specifically, and
what did we end up seeing. Well, you might imagine
that if the country needed twenty five percent more power,
we need even more. We need like this supercharged turbo
version of Tim Allen here, because we need thirty five
percent more power by twenty thirty and by twenty fifty
we need one hundred percent more power, double the power

(01:12):
the primary tract drivers in the state of Florida, data
centers and AI. Get this, forty percent of all of
the demand for new power is going to be just
for AI. Next up is manufacturing as we continue to
increase manufacturing in our state, the demand on that twenty
five percent of the increase in demand for manufacturing, and

(01:36):
then fifteen percent each for the oil and gas and
energy production industry that has everything to do with transporting
and also the offshore golf operations in our state. And
then you get into the residential and commercial electricity a
fifteen percent demand over that's part of just our population growth.
But you think about that, it's even half of like

(01:58):
the AI demand. And then crypto is the remaining five percent.
And so the report goes on to recommend a minimum
of ten billion dollars in new investment by Florida's utility
companies just by the end of the decade. With the
focus on solar. Nuclear is the most efficient means, but
it takes so many years to get those online to
meet the immediate demand that's coming. Saying that solar can

(02:20):
be scaled probably the quickest. You do have FPLS thirty
by thirty initiative that's working generally in that direction. But man,
I mean what they're talking about here really needs to
be like fifty by thirty kind of deal. It just
the one two to three punch of the population growth
in our state. But really the AI and then crypto

(02:40):
age has so much to do with huge demand on
Florida's power.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
All right, it's Florida headlines govern to d Santas outlining
change just to Florida's public universities. At USF yesterday, he
said the state's sending the use of H one B
visa employees at state schools and the state's canceling or
repurposing over thirty three million dollars in DEI related grants.
You have scammers working to take advantage of Hurricane Melissa.
Better Business Bureau on in Florida says it could be

(03:06):
setting out texts and emails asking for money, and of
course they don't have any plans to help survivors in
Jamaica or elsewhere. And there's a football game tonight Ravens
and Dolphins clash at hard Rock Stadium. You can listen
on the real radio one oh one

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Souls trying to contain its enthusiasm about this