At Thursday’s City Council meeting, District 6 Councilmember Gina Driscoll called for a new discussion on how St. Petersburg can lower energy costs and cut power use citywide.
Driscoll introduced a referral to the Health, Energy, Resilience and Sustainability Committee – known as HERS (Driscoll is a member) – to take up a “citywide energy efficiency and clean energy initiative.”
While not clearly defined, the referral’s overall goal is to find ways to reduce energy consumption and save residents money. The referral was passed unanimously by the city council.
“This discussion is in parallel with the discussion on municipal electric,” Driscoll said. Her statement references the city’s broader debate about exploring other municipal utility options when its franchise agreement with Duke Energy expires in 2026.
While the larger question of municipal energy remains, Driscoll’s referral shifts the focus to what the city can do in the meantime, using programs that improve efficiency in homes and city buildings, encourage clean energy adoption and help residents manage rising power bills.
Councilmember Brandi Gabbard backed the effort but raised a caution. “There are a lot of initiatives going,” she said. “I just want to make sure we’re not duplicating efforts and there’s some synergy there.”
Gabbard said she had recently met with Sustainability and Resilience Director Maeven Rogers, who leads much of the city’s energy and climate work and provides regular updates to the HERS Committee.
Rogers’ office oversees the city’s Integrated Sustainability Action Plan, which includes the Clean Energy Roadmap: an outline of how St. Pete can reach its renewable and efficiency goals.
In a recent report to the HERS Committee, Rogers assessed that city government facilities use about 73 million kilowatt-hours of electricity each year – roughly the same amount as several thousand homes. Most of that power still comes from the regular grid, with only a small share supplied by local solar projects or Duke Energy’s Clean Energy Connection program.
For further context, those figures illustrate just how dependent the city is on traditional energy sources, even after years of planning toward renewable goals.