Tampa Bay area electric leaders discuss adapting to Florida's climate reality of stronger storms
By Jessica Meszaros
December 9, 2024 at 2:35 PM EST
“Our residents need to start looking at future risk… start thinking about what happens when sea level rise starts combining with rainier days and stronger storms,” said Cara Wood Serra of the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council.
Electric utility leaders from the Tampa region shared lessons learned after recent hurricanes during a sustainability panel discussion hosted by the Tampa Bay Times and Tampa Electric at the Shanna and Bryan Glazer Jewish Community Center in Tampa on Thursday.
Carlos Aldazabal, Tampa Electric's vice president of energy supply, said the two big takeaways after Hurricanes Helene and Milton are: infrastructure needs to be elevated away from flood waters, and trees that surround transmission corridors may need to be trimmed back.
"About 85 to 90% of the damage that we saw from Milton was as a result of downed trees or branches and power lines," he said.
Sharon Arroyo, vice president of government and community relations for Duke Energy Florida, said they have 821 new lessons that they will work toward leading up to the next hurricane season, starting June 1, but she reflected back on a hurricane from 2017.
“One of the most important lessons we learned from Irma, and that we have employed since, and that made an impact for us in these storms, was where we bring in our contractors and stage them,” she said.
“Getting those crews to the site to the damage as quickly as possible made a huge difference for us in the amount of days it took for us to restore. And for Helene, we restored all that could receive power within three days. And for Milton, all that could receive power within four days of the storm landfall.”
Hurricanes and climate change
Cara Wood Serra, with the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council, said the Federal Emergency Management Agency is only showing flood risk through a past lens, but the risk is changing due to climate change.
“Our residents need to start looking at future risk and thinking about maybe the insurance company doesn't say there's a high risk here yet, but… start thinking about what happens when sea level rise starts combining with rainier days and stronger storms,” she said.
Global warming is known to make storms stronger and rainier. Serra’s organization recently released a study showing that electric companies produce the most climate-warming pollution in the greater Tampa Bay region, but that study was not discussed during the panel discussion.
TECO’s Aldazabal did volunteer some information about the utility moving away from burning climate-warming coal to generate power.
“Ten years ago, about 60% of our generation from Tampa Electric was generated by coal. This year is going to be less than 1%... so significant reduction, and that translates to about a 47% reduction in CO2 emissions,” he said.
“We're trying to move away from carbon to the extent we can, but it's a pricey proposition. Solar is not the panacea for us. We live in a very small footprint, Tampa Electric service area, so we can’t go 100% solar and batteries, it would be too costly.”
Solar represents about 11% of TECO’s overall energy generation, Aldazabal said. TECO primarily relies on fracked gas, called “natural gas,” which is also a greenhouse gas emitting fossil fuel process.
Duke Energy Florida is also moving away from burning coal while relying more on natural gas, according to Arroyo.
“Our coal plants will be retired very shortly, and then we will be natural gas and solar, but solar is a big part of our climate resiliency program,” she said.
“Solar plants play a major part in that, and we have almost 1,500 megawatts of solar installed today, and we'll plan to build a like amount in the next five years as well.”
Understanding Milton's flooding
Maya Burke, with the Tampa Bay Estuary Program, said residents across the greater Tampa Bay region underestimated the flooding from rainfall during recent hurricanes.
She said people confused things like evacuation zone, which is related to coastal surge flooding, with a flood zone, which could be coastal surge or fresh water rainfall flooding... or both.
"Every single one of us lives in a flood plain. It's a matter of how much risk you have. And that risk profile is really changing, because our baseline is shifting,” she said.
But she did warn that floodwaters should slowly flow into the bay, because fast-moving water could lead to ecological impacts.
“Continuing to invest in our wastewater infrastructure is really critical if we want this place to continue to be a lovely place to live, and then I think we need to protect as much as we can of the wild Florida that's left,” Burke said.
Hillsborough County commissioners recently voted to study how the flood water infrastructure fared across the county and the cities of Tampa, Plant City and Temple Terrace during the extreme Milton rain event.
Josh Bellotti, with Hillsborough Public Works, talked a bit about it.
“All of our built infrastructure is designed to a 25-year level event… which those events occur more frequently, but when you have an event like Milton that far exceeds that, none of the infrastructure is built to withstand that. So, it's a measure of risk, and it's a measure of what's the expectation of us collectively as a community, what do we want to plan for?” Bellotti said.
Carlos Aldazabal, Tampa Electric's vice president of energy supply, said the two big takeaways after Hurricanes Helene and Milton are: infrastructure needs to be elevated away from flood waters, and trees that surround transmission corridors may need to be trimmed back.
"About 85 to 90% of the damage that we saw from Milton was as a result of downed trees or branches and power lines," he said.
Sharon Arroyo, vice president of government and community relations for Duke Energy Florida, said they have 821 new lessons that they will work toward leading up to the next hurricane season, starting June 1, but she reflected back on a hurricane from 2017.
“One of the most important lessons we learned from Irma, and that we have employed since, and that made an impact for us in these storms, was where we bring in our contractors and stage them,” she said.
“Getting those crews to the site to the damage as quickly as possible made a huge difference for us in the amount of days it took for us to restore. And for Helene, we restored all that could receive power within three days. And for Milton, all that could receive power within four days of the storm landfall.”
Hurricanes and climate change
Cara Wood Serra, with the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council, said the Federal Emergency Management Agency is only showing flood risk through a past lens, but the risk is changing due to climate change.
“Our residents need to start looking at future risk and thinking about maybe the insurance company doesn't say there's a high risk here yet, but… start thinking about what happens when sea level rise starts combining with rainier days and stronger storms,” she said.
Global warming is known to make storms stronger and rainier. Serra’s organization recently released a study showing that electric companies produce the most climate-warming pollution in the greater Tampa Bay region, but that study was not discussed during the panel discussion.
TECO’s Aldazabal did volunteer some information about the utility moving away from burning climate-warming coal to generate power.
“Ten years ago, about 60% of our generation from Tampa Electric was generated by coal. This year is going to be less than 1%... so significant reduction, and that translates to about a 47% reduction in CO2 emissions,” he said.
“We're trying to move away from carbon to the extent we can, but it's a pricey proposition. Solar is not the panacea for us. We live in a very small footprint, Tampa Electric service area, so we can’t go 100% solar and batteries, it would be too costly.”
Solar represents about 11% of TECO’s overall energy generation, Aldazabal said. TECO primarily relies on fracked gas, called “natural gas,” which is also a greenhouse gas emitting fossil fuel process.
Duke Energy Florida is also moving away from burning coal while relying more on natural gas, according to Arroyo.
“Our coal plants will be retired very shortly, and then we will be natural gas and solar, but solar is a big part of our climate resiliency program,” she said.
“Solar plants play a major part in that, and we have almost 1,500 megawatts of solar installed today, and we'll plan to build a like amount in the next five years as well.”
Understanding Milton's flooding
Maya Burke, with the Tampa Bay Estuary Program, said residents across the greater Tampa Bay region underestimated the flooding from rainfall during recent hurricanes.
She said people confused things like evacuation zone, which is related to coastal surge flooding, with a flood zone, which could be coastal surge or fresh water rainfall flooding... or both.
"Every single one of us lives in a flood plain. It's a matter of how much risk you have. And that risk profile is really changing, because our baseline is shifting,” she said.
But she did warn that floodwaters should slowly flow into the bay, because fast-moving water could lead to ecological impacts.
“Continuing to invest in our wastewater infrastructure is really critical if we want this place to continue to be a lovely place to live, and then I think we need to protect as much as we can of the wild Florida that's left,” Burke said.
Hillsborough County commissioners recently voted to study how the flood water infrastructure fared across the county and the cities of Tampa, Plant City and Temple Terrace during the extreme Milton rain event.
Josh Bellotti, with Hillsborough Public Works, talked a bit about it.
“All of our built infrastructure is designed to a 25-year level event… which those events occur more frequently, but when you have an event like Milton that far exceeds that, none of the infrastructure is built to withstand that. So, it's a measure of risk, and it's a measure of what's the expectation of us collectively as a community, what do we want to plan for?” Bellotti said.