Four Florida investor-owned utilities must file a large-load tariff for Commission approval by October 1, 2026 under section 366.043, Florida Statutes. This is the framework I will read those filings against, published before they exist so the criteria are on the record before anyone knows the answers.
Seven tests, each tied to the subsection it reads. Four findings per test. One gate, one total, three counts. It is not a prediction of what the Commission will do and it takes no view on the size of the data center buildout. It is about who pays.
Writing on deadline? Call 850.973.7687 or email mmcnees@fsu.edu.
Go straight to the rubricSeven tests, four filings, scored as you go.
A structured reading of the four large-load filings due October 1, 2026, against one statute and one existing , applied the same way to each filing. It is a compliance reading because the statute asks for compliance: section 366.043(8) requires each public utility to file a tariff that complies with this section. The question is whether the filed words satisfy the statute, requirement by requirement.
The criteria are published before the filings exist, so they are on the record before anyone knows the answers. It is not a prediction of what the Florida Public Service Commission will do, a forecast about the size of the data center buildout, or an environmental argument. It is about .
Standing. I am not a party to these . The Office of Public Counsel is, and its review is the one that carries legal weight. This is an outside academic reading. My only filing on the subject is a public comment in Docket 20260064-EI, Document No. 04900-2026.
Amended September 18, 2026. The criteria were changed before any filing exists, and the change is dated so it stays on the record ahead of the filings it applies to. Four changes. A rule for confidential treatment, including what counts as a publicly stated rate. At Test 6, silence now reads met, because 366.043(6) prohibits hindering curtailment rather than requiring a curtailment clause. The deferred count is of six, not seven, because test zero and Test 7 have no deferred finding. And two labels are corrected: the tests number seven, and the five tests the total runs on are named. Two clarifications also appear, at Test 2 and Test 5. The September 15 version remains readable in the site's public history.
Every term that needs one is defined where it first appears, and the glossary at the end defines all of them. On the web version, clicking a term opens its definition without leaving the page. The matrix is fillable: download the PDF and mark your own readings in it as the filings land.
Section 366.043 applies to a public utility as defined in section 366.02, which excludes rural electric cooperatives and municipal utilities. Four must file by October 1: Florida Power & Light, Duke Energy Florida, Tampa Electric, and Florida Public Utilities.
| Utility type (Florida PSC, customers as of Dec. 31, 2024) | Accounts |
|---|---|
| Investor-owned (covered by the statute) | 8,898,282 |
| Municipal (not covered) | 1,624,182 |
| Rural electric cooperative (not covered) | 1,373,691 |
| Total | 11,896,155 |
| Outside the statute | 2,997,873 (25.20 percent) |
Source: Florida Public Service Commission, Statistics of the Florida Electric Utility Industry 2024, published October 2025, Table 32, printed page 47. These are accounts, not population. Florida Public Utilities serves 33,188 of the investor-owned accounts; the statute applies to it on the same terms as to the other three. FPSC report
SB 484 was signed May 7, 2026 as Chapter 2026-65, Laws of Florida, and took effect July 1, 2026. It creates section 366.043.
Source: enrolled text of CS/CS/SB 484 and the chapter law. Every subsection cited in this document was read in that text. Enrolled text Chapter law
Who is covered, 366.043(2)(d). A has an anticipated monthly peak load of 50 megawatts or more, measured as the highest average over a 15-minute interval at a single location. tenants at one location count together, meaning separate tenants sharing one site. Load spread across several locations under one owner does not. Section 366.043(4) bars splitting a load at one location to stay under the threshold.
Two standards in one paragraph, 366.043(3)(a). The first sentence says the tariff and service requirements must reasonably ensure that each large load customer bears its own full and that such cost is not shifted to the , listing connection, incremental transmission, , other infrastructure, operations and maintenance, and any other costs required to serve. The last sentence is unqualified: the risk of nonpayment of such costs may not be borne by the general body of ratepayers. A filing can be defensible under the first sentence and still fail the second.
A menu, not a mandate, 366.043(5). The Commission may approve tariffs that include , money paid up front toward construction; including minimum demand charges, priced on the largest amount of power drawn at once; incremental generation charges; ; minimum , a measure of how steadily a customer draws power; provisions, under which the customer pays for a minimum quantity whether or not it uses it; and at (5)(g) including early termination fees. A utility can decline every tool on the list and still owe the result that (3)(a) requires.
Also in the section. Nothing may hinder for grid stability or emergencies, 366.043(6). To curtail is to require a customer to cut back or stop drawing power, under terms the customer agreed to in advance. Foreign-entity screening and a service prohibition, 366.043(3)(b) and (7). The rate provisions are technology-neutral: the phrase data center does not appear in section 366.043.
| Finding | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Met | The filed language satisfies the requirement on its face, without a later proceeding. |
| Partially met | Some elements addressed, others absent. |
| Not met | The requirement is not addressed in the filed language. |
| Deferred | The filing acknowledges the requirement and assigns its resolution to a future proceeding. |
Silence is not met, not deferred, except at Test 6, explained below. Deferred requires the filing to say the requirement is coming later. And partially met does not trip the below, because the filing addressed the requirement imperfectly rather than ignored it. Only not met trips it.
Two prohibitions read differently. Test 6 reads a prohibition. Section 366.043(6) says no contract, service requirement or utility policy may hinder curtailment. It does not require a curtailment clause. So at Test 6, silence reads met, and only filed language that hinders curtailment reads not met. Anti-splitting at 366.043(4) is also a prohibition, and it is reported without scoring for the same reason: the absence of a clause is not a miss where the statute requires none. Everywhere else, silence is not met.
A filing may redact cost studies, load forecasts, contract terms, supporting workpapers, and customer or counterparty identities without penalty, where those materials are redacted under a pending request or a granted claim of confidential treatment. This framework does not second-guess the Commission's confidentiality rulings.
Sealed support is deferred. Sealed silence is not. Where the public filing addresses a required test and only the material supporting it is confidential, the finding is deferred, and the written reading notes that the support is confidential, so it is not mistaken for a requirement assigned to a future proceeding. Where the public filing is silent on the requirement, the finding is not met, whatever may sit under seal. A requirement cannot move from not met to deferred by sealing the evidence.
What counts as a stated rate. Section 366.043(8) requires a tariff filed for Commission approval, and this framework reads a as the published terms and prices at which a class of customers is served. This reading follows the Commission’s own rule, which lists rate schedules among a tariff’s contents and defines a rate schedule as the rate or charge for a classification of service (Rule 25-9.002(5) and (8), F.A.C.). It does not require a new rate schedule. An existing published rate schedule that the filing designates for large-load service is a publicly stated rate. Whether that rate recovers the large load’s cost of service is scored at Tests 1 and 2, not here. A rate is publicly stated when the public filing gives either the price or the formula that produces it. A formula whose inputs are confidential is a stated rate with confidential support, read under the paragraph above. A charge set only in a confidential service agreement, with neither price nor formula in the public filing, is not a stated rate.
How it scores at test zero. Where no charge in the filing is publicly stated, no publicly filed tariff exists for scoring purposes, and test zero reads not met. Where some charges are stated and others are withheld, test zero reads partially met, and each cost category priced only by a withheld charge is recorded as unassigned in the Test 2 grid. That a tariff must state its price rather than refer to a confidential agreement is a construction of 366.043(8), not a settled one. Whether a utility may serve a statutory large load customer through contract terms is contested in Docket 20260064-EI, as Test 1 notes.
Test 5 keeps its own rule. It is optional and asks specifically whether the incremental generation basis can be checked, so partly confidential reads partially met there, as stated at Test 5. The deferral above applies to required tests only.
This is a reading of what the public record contains, not a challenge to the grant of confidential treatment.
No test is weighted above another, because the statute does not rank its own requirements. What the statute does rank is , and that is the only distinction the scoring uses.
The statute makes that distinction plainly. Section 366.043(8) and section 366.043(3)(a) are required: the utility shall file, the requirements must reasonably ensure full cost of service, and the risk of nonpayment may not be borne by the general body of ratepayers. Subsection (5) is optional: the Commission may approve the listed tools, and a utility can decline every one of them. So each test is marked required or optional in the matrix, according to the provision it reads.
. A percentage of the five required tariff standards a filing satisfies , each weighted equally: test zero and Tests 1, 2, 3 and 6. Test 7 is required too, but it reaches the gate only, so it is not among the five. It is called a total rather than a score because it counts what the filed words satisfy; it does not weigh how much any one requirement matters. Met scores 1.0. Partially met and deferred each score 0.5, because both mean the requirement was addressed but not satisfied on its face, which is better than silence and worse than done. Not met scores 0. Five required tests, so the total is multiplied by 20. The two optional tests are excluded: a utility may lawfully decline every tool at subsection (5), and including them would score a lawful choice as a deficiency.
The gate overrides the total. A filing with any required test reading not met is reported as missing a required element on the face of the filing, regardless of the percentage, so no filing can offset a miss with good marks elsewhere. The total is still reported, because how far short it falls is itself informative. This is a reading of the filed words. It is not a finding the Commission has made or will make; 366.043(3)(a) asks the Commission to judge what reasonably ensures full cost of service, and that judgment belongs to a proceeding.
Reported with the total, never folded into it:
Two things the arithmetic does on purpose. Five partially met readings clear the gate at 50 percent, and one not met among four met readings misses the gate at 80 percent. That is the design: a filing that addresses every requirement imperfectly ranks above one that is silent on any of them. And deferred scores the same 0.5 as partially met, so a filing that names a requirement and parks the arithmetic in a future docket scores better than silence and worse than a stated charge mechanism. A reader who thinks a promise should score lower than half credit can see exactly where that judgment sits.
A worked example, using the one tariff that already exists. FPL's LLCS schedules apply only to new or incremental load of 50 MW or more and a load factor of 85 percent or higher, while the statute sets no load factor condition and no new-load limit, so a customer the statute covers can be served outside the tariff. Test 1 reads not met. Were that an October 1 filing, the gate would read missed and the arithmetic on the remaining tests would not change the headline.
A second case worth naming in advance. A letter asserting that existing tariffs already comply arrives on time but files no tariff for approval, so test zero reads partially met. The gate does not trip, the total is capped at 90 percent before any other test is read, and tests 1 through 7 are then applied to whichever existing tariff the letter points to.
This sits ahead of the seven tests because everything after it assumes a filing to read. It has three outcomes, not two.
Findings for test zero.
A filing that already exists. Duke Energy Florida has a large-load tariff petition pending in Docket 20260064-EI, heard and briefed before October 1. On October 1 the question for Duke is what arrived: a new tariff filed for approval under 366.043(8), a letter pointing to the pending petition, or nothing. Whatever arrives is recorded with its docket and document number. If the pending petition is the instrument Duke relies on, tests 1 through 7 are applied to that instrument, not waived because it predates the deadline. A new October 1 filing supersedes it for scoring.
What the statute provides in the second and third cases. Section 366.043(8) states the obligation and carries no penalty of its own. Section 366.095 lets the Commission penalize an entity found to have refused to comply with or willfully violated any provision of chapter 366, up to $5,000 per offense, each day a separate offense; it requires a finding and is discretionary. Section 366.06(2) lets the Commission act upon its own motion where rates or practices are unjust or in violation of law. Recorded for each utility: what arrived, its document number, and its date.
Statutory hook. 366.043(2)(d), read against the tariff's applicability clause.
Question. Does the tariff apply to every customer the statute defines as a large load customer, or do added eligibility conditions narrow it? Watch for floors, meaning a minimum steadiness of draw; new-load-only limits; optional election structures; thresholds measured other than as a 15-minute peak at one location; and colocation tenants not aggregated.
Two things to say about this test. First, whether a utility may serve a statutory large load customer under a general schedule with added contract terms, rather than under a separate tariff, is contested in Docket 20260064-EI. The not met standard above takes the reading that a complying tariff must reach every customer the statute defines; that is a construction of 366.043(8), not a settled one. Second, a load factor used inside a tariff to price steadiness, which 366.043(5)(e) allows, is not a coverage defect. A load factor used as an eligibility floor that leaves a 50 MW customer outside the tariff is.
Recorded for each filing: the applicability language, verbatim, with sheet number.
Statutory hook. 366.043(3)(a), first sentence: the requirements must reasonably ensure that each large load customer bears its own full cost of service. Reasonably ensure is a standard, not a checklist, which is why partially met and deferred exist in this test.
Question. Does the tariff assign each listed category to the large load customer: connection, incremental transmission, incremental generation, other infrastructure, operations and maintenance, and any other costs required to serve? The list is open-ended, so whether the tariff has a catch-all is itself part of the test.
One assigned category is enough to move this test from not met to partially met. That is deliberate: reasonably ensure is a standard, and a filing that prices one category has addressed the requirement, however thinly. The grid recorded below shows exactly how many categories are assigned, so a thin partially met is visible rather than hidden in the half credit.
Recorded for each filing: a grid, one row per cost category, one column per utility.
Statutory hook. 366.043(3)(a), last sentence. Tools at (5)(a) and (5)(d).
Question. Which does the filing use, and are they sized to the utility's committed investment or only to a few months of billing?
Recorded for each filing: instrument type, sizing formula, and the investment it sits against.
Statutory hook. 366.043(3)(a) addresses nonpayment. Durability tools at (5)(f) and (5)(g) are optional.
Question. Nonpayment is not the same event as termination, expiry, or non-renewal. A customer can pay every invoice and still leave. If a utility builds capacity for a load that later leaves, does the tariff say who carries the cost of what remains, the ? The one yes-or-no check: did the filing include an early termination charge under (5)(g)?
The met standard here is a durability test, not a statutory minimum. The statute does not require a term, a take-or-pay level or a termination charge; it allows them. A short exit fee with no stated basis reads partially met on this test and is still lawful. The reason the test exists is that the first sentence of 366.043(3)(a) reaches any other costs required to serve, and a plant built for a customer who pays every bill and then leaves is a cost that lands on someone. The statute puts the tools for that in the optional list, so the test is optional and the risk is named here.
Recorded for each filing: term, take-or-pay level, and whether the termination charge is a formula or a negotiated amount.
Statutory hook. 366.043(3)(a) lists incremental generation among the costs the customer bears. 366.043(5)(c) authorizes an incremental generation charge. Neither says how that cost is measured.
Question. Does the filing state how the charge is calculated, from a basis someone outside the utility can check, and is the underlying calculation filed or confidential?
Confidential cost models are ordinary at the Commission. Reading partly confidential as partially met is a transparency preference, stated as such: a charge nobody outside the utility can check is harder to call cost of service on its face.
Recorded for each filing: the calculation language, verbatim, and whether it is filed or confidential.
Statutory hook. 366.043(6), which reaches contracts, service requirements, and utility policies, not just the tariff sheet.
Question. Do guarantees, liability terms, or performance credits make costly or conditional?
Recorded for each filing: the curtailment clause and any language that interacts with it.
Statutory hook. 366.043(3)(b). The requirements must include provisions reasonably designed to prevent service to a customer that would otherwise be a large load customer if that customer is a foreign entity.
Question. Are such provisions in the filed tariff or not. This is a required element, so a filing silent on it misses the gate. It is outside the cost question this framework exists to ask, so it is read as present or absent, with no judgment on design, and it does not enter the total.
Recorded for each filing: the screening clause, verbatim, with sheet number.
Reported without scoring: the foreign-entity service prohibition at 366.043(7), which binds the utility rather than the tariff; anti-splitting at 366.043(4), which is a prohibition on the customer and not a required tariff clause, so its absence from a tariff is not a miss; and colocation aggregation, 366.043(2)(d).
Florida already has one approved large-load tariff: Florida Power & Light's Large-Load Contract Service schedules, LLCS-1 at Sheet No. 8.950 and LLCS-2 at Sheet No. 8.953, effective January 1, 2026, from the 2025 rate settlement in Docket 20250011-EI. The Commission voted to approve the settlement November 20, 2025, and issued Order No. PSC-2026-0022-S-EI on January 22, 2026.
Paragraph 6 of the settlement approved the LLCS tariffs as filed with modifications. Those modifications are the terms that can be checked today:
The tariff sheets set a minimum term of not less than 20 years from the in-service date, including the load ramp period, and require two years' written notice to terminate (FPL tariff Sheets 8.951 and 8.954, read September 20, 2026). The sheets impose early termination charges and refer the amount to the LLCS Service Agreement, which is itself a tariff form on file with the Commission. That agreement sets the Exit Fee at the net present value of the accelerated payment of the Incremental Generation Charges the customer would have paid over the rest of the minimum term, calculated at the charges in effect at termination (LLCS Service Agreement, Section 4.3.2, FPL tariff Sheet No. 9.965, read September 20, 2026). The fee is measured by the Incremental Generation Charge alone, not the full bill.
Applied to Test 1, the benchmark reads not met. The statute defines a large load customer by anticipated monthly peak of 50 MW at a single location. It sets no load factor condition and no new-load limit. A customer the statute covers, at 50 MW with an 80 percent load factor, can be served outside the LLCS tariff.
Every date in the paragraph above comes before SB 484 was signed. A tariff written before the statute existed was not written against its required elements, so it is read element by element like the others rather than presumed to comply. It was also a partial settlement. The signatories are listed at footnote 2 of Order No. PSC-2026-0117-FOF-EI (Document No. 02414-2026); the Office of Public Counsel did not sign, and under paragraph 31 no signatory may seek appellate review of the approving order.
Source: 2025 Stipulation and Settlement Agreement, Docket No. 20250011-EI, dated August 20, 2025, filed as exhibit 99 to a Form 8-K, paragraphs 6 and 31; Order No. PSC-2026-0022-S-EI. Settlement, SEC EDGAR Approving order
In 2013 and 2014 two aluminum smelters on the Big Rivers Electric system in Kentucky moved off their cost-based contracts. Industrial customers asked the Kentucky Public Service Commission to charge the departing load for the capacity built to serve it. The Commission declined, Case No. 2013-00221 (August 14, 2013) and Case No. 2013-00413 (January 30, 2014). The Commission-approved 2009 contracts carried a twelve-month termination notice and no provision imposing an exit fee, and the Commission would not read one in afterward.
The costs did not disappear. In Case No. 2020-00064 (June 25, 2020), the Commission authorized recovery of regulatory assets whose stated balances total approximately $371.9 million, plus decommissioning costs not yet determined, over a period no longer than through December 31, 2043, with an annual application required each February. At page 23 of that order, in its own findings: if BREC's history informs the Commission of nothing else, it is LIC customers that may come and go based on a number of factors; and the rural class is always left holding the bag. A term that is not in the agreement at signing may not be available later.
Source: Kentucky Public Service Commission orders in Case Nos. 2013-00221, 2013-00413 and 2020-00064. 2013-00221 2013-00413 2020-00064
The deliverable is one matrix, published October 1 and 2 as the filings land. Test zero and the seven tests are the rows, each marked required or optional. The four filings are the columns. One finding per cell, from the four values above. The last five rows carry the gate, the total, and the three counts.
Each row carries the statutory requirement it reads, so the thing being scored sits next to the finding rather than somewhere else in the document. The second reference column is FPL's existing LLCS tariff, the only large-load tariff Florida has approved so far. It is there for comparison, not as a standard: it was written before SB 484 existed, it reads not met on Test 1, and it is a separate instrument from whatever FPL files on October 1. The same utility appears in both places and the two are not read together.
| Test, and what the statute requires | Required or optional | FPL LLCSalready approved, for comparison | FPLfiles Oct 1 | Dukefiles Oct 1 | TECOfiles Oct 1 | Florida Public Utilitiesfiles Oct 1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Test zero. Complying tariff filed366.043(8). File a tariff that complies with this section, for Commission approval, no later than October 1, 2026. | Required | n/a | ||||
| 1. Coverage matches the definition366.043(2)(d). Reach every customer with an anticipated monthly peak of 50 MW or more, highest 15-minute average, at a single location. | Required | Not met. 85% load factor floor, new load only | ||||
| 2. Cost categories assigned366.043(3)(a), first sentence. Assign the customer its full cost of service: connection, incremental transmission, incremental generation, other infrastructure, operations and maintenance, and any other costs required to serve. | Required | |||||
| 3. Nonpayment risk off ratepayers366.043(3)(a), last sentence. The risk of nonpayment may not be borne by the general body of ratepayers. Unqualified. | Required | |||||
| 4. Asset when the load leaves366.043(5)(f) and (5)(g). Nothing is required. The Commission may approve minimum terms and early termination fees. The required result at (3)(a) still has to be reached by some route. | Optional | |||||
| 5. Incremental generation basis stated366.043(5)(c). Nothing is required. The Commission may approve an incremental generation charge. The statute does not say how that cost is measured. | Optional | |||||
| 6. Curtailment unhindered366.043(6). No contract, service requirement or utility policy may hinder curtailment for grid stability or emergencies. | Required | |||||
| 7. Foreign-entity screening present366.043(3)(b). The tariff must include provisions reasonably designed to prevent service to a large load customer that is a foreign entity. Required; reaches the gate, not the total. | Required | |||||
| Gate: clears, or misses a required test | not yet read | not yet read | not yet read | not yet read | ||
| Total, % | not yet read | not yet read | not yet read | not yet read | ||
| Required tests met, of five | not yet read | not yet read | not yet read | not yet read | ||
| Deferred, of six | not yet read | not yet read | not yet read | not yet read | ||
| Optional tools, of two | not yet read | not yet read | not yet read | not yet read |
Choose a finding in any cell and the five rows below fill themselves. The total stays blank until all five required tariff tests have been read, because a partial total reads lower than the filing deserves.
The comparison cell at Test 1 is filled because that tariff exists and can be read today. Every other cell stays empty until a filing exists to read. Nothing in the bottom five rows requires a forecast or a judgment about relative importance: the gate is binary and the counts are arithmetic on the cells above them. A miss at the gate is a reading of the filed words, not a finding the Commission has made or will make.
The PDF is the same seven tests as a printable worksheet. Mark a finding with one click in every cell. In Adobe Acrobat and Acrobat Reader the gate, the total and the three counts fill themselves in; other PDF viewers leave them for you to type. The matrix on this page does the arithmetic in any browser and saves your completed matrix straight to a PDF.
Fillable worksheet, PDF, 12 pages, amended September 18, 2026
Every term below appears somewhere in this framework. Nothing here assumes prior knowledge of utility regulation.
Every checkable fact in this document traces to one of the documents below. Each was opened at the address given. Two are retrieved by number from the Commission's docket search because the Commission's document server does not publish stable addresses for them.
It does not forecast the contents of filings that do not yet exist; every statement about them stays conditional until October 1. It takes no view on how large the buildout will be, only on who bears the risk if it is wrong. It is not a finding about what the Commission will or should decide.