Overview

Resources and Consumption

Florida has minor oil and gas reserves and few other energy resources. However, geologists believe that large deposits of oil and gas may be found in the federally administered Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) off Florida’s western coast. Congressional and Presidential moratoria prohibiting energy development in most of the OCS were lifted in 2008,but a separate Act banning energy development within 100-125 miles of Florida remains in effect until 2022.

Although Florida has few renewable energy resources, researchers are looking for ways to produce ethanol using citrus peel waste from Florida’s juice-processing industry. A planned facility in Hendry County is expected to produce 4 million gallons per year of ethanol from citrus waste; the facility would be the first ethanol plant in the world to use that feedstock. The plant, which would be located near the center of the State’s sugar cane industry, is planning to experiment with sugar cane feedstock as well.

Due to its large population, Florida’s total energy consumption is among the highest in the country. However, due to relatively low energy use by the industrial sector, per capita energy consumption is among the lowest in the country. Florida’s transportation and residential sectors lead State energy demand.

Petroleum

Most of Florida’s minor crude oil production comes from fields in the northwestern Panhandle, but the State also produces some crude oil from smaller fields in the south. Although companies have explored for oil and gas in the Federal OCS south of Panama City, exploration activity has been dormant since 1995, when a litigation settlement returned 73 oil and gas leases in this area to the Federal Government. Florida has no oil refineries and relies on petroleum products delivered by tanker and barge to marine terminals near the State’s major coastal cities. Due in part to Florida’s tourist industry, demand for petroleum-based transportation fuels (motor gasoline and jet fuel) is among the highest in the United States. Traffic at the international airports in Miami and Orlando is among the heaviest in the country.

Natural Gas

Florida receives most of its natural gas supply from the Gulf Coast Region via two major interstate pipelines: the Florida Gas Transmission line, which runs from Texas through the Florida Panhandle to Miami, and the Gulfstream pipeline, an underwater link from Mississippi and Alabama to central Florida. With the completion of the Cypress Pipeline in May 2007, the Jacksonville area has also begun receiving supplies from the liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal at Elba Island, Georgia. Florida’s natural gas consumption is high and has grown rapidly in recent years, due primarily to increasing demand from the electric power sector, which dominates State natural gas use. To help meet Florida’s growing demand for natural gas, companies have proposed building new LNG import terminals in the Federal waters off Florida’s Atlantic and Gulf coasts and on the nearby islands of the Bahamas that would be connected via underwater pipeline to Florida’s existing natural gas pipeline system.

Coal, Electricity, and Renewables

Electricity generation in Florida is among the highest in the United States. Natural gas and coal are the leading fuels for electricity production, typically accounting for about 40 percent and 30 percent of net generation, respectively. Nuclear and petroleum-fired power plants account for much of the remaining electricity production within the State. Florida has more petroleum-fired electricity generation than any other State. Florida also a leading producer of electricity from municipal solid waste and landfill gas, although generation from those sources contributes only minimally to the electricity grid. There are no coal mines in Florida and coal-fired power plants rely on supplies delivered by railroad and barge, mostly from Kentucky, Illinois, and West Virginia.

Florida’s per capita residential electricity demand is among the highest in the country, due in part to high air-conditioning use during the hot summer months and the widespread use of electricity for home heating during the winter months. Despite high demand from the residential and commercial sectors, total per capita electricity consumption in Florida is not high, because industrial electricity use is relatively low. About nine-tenths of Florida households use electricity as their main energy source for home heating.

While the State does not have a renewable portfolio standard, Florida did adopt energy standards that require major facility projects in the State to be constructed to high energy efficiency standards in order to reduce energy use. In addition, utilities in Florida are required to disclose their fuel sources and adopt net metering to credit customers' utility bills for electricity they provide to the grid from renewable sources.