Vero Beach's Municipal Electric Utility — Vero Beach, Florida

Vero Beach got into the power business by rescue rather than design. In a 2009 history of the system, Vero Beach 32963 reported that the city took over the first power plant built by the Vero Utilities Company in the early 1920s, when the private owners were unable to keep pace with growing customer demand. The Indian River Guardian, marking the end of local generation in 2015, put the purchase 96 years earlier and placed that first privately run plant downtown near the railroad tracks.

A larger diesel plant replaced it in the 1920s boom. When the City of Vero Beach was trying to resolve a failed redevelopment lease on the building in June 2013, Vero Beach 32963 described the vacant diesel power plant as an 87-year-old building, which dates it to 1926, and noted that one massive generator had been left inside as a showpiece of the early industrial history of Vero Beach.

Vero Beach was one of many Florida towns that kept a city utility. Florida Trend reported in March 2013 that Florida has 34 municipal electric utilities, that cities generally entered the business early in the twentieth century, some by taking over a failing private company, and that Vero Beach, at 34,000 customers, ranked 90th nationally among public power systems.

The city moved generation to the Indian River in 1961. The first generating unit at the current 19.6-acre plant, located on the northeast corner of 17th Street and Indian River Boulevard, was put into commercial service in 1961, and Vero Beach 32963 listed four more: unit 2 in 1964, unit 3 in 1970, unit 4 in 1976 and unit 5 in 1992. Painted a distinctive aqua, the riverfront plant became known around Vero Beach as Big Blue.

By the 2000s Big Blue was a backup more than a source. In 2008, according to the same 2009 Vero Beach 32963 analysis, the plant could at best fill the needs of fewer than half the utility's 33,329 electric customers, and Vero Electric bought most of its power from the Florida Municipal Power Agency and later the Orlando Utilities Commission. Florida Trend reported in 2013 that Big Blue supplied only 1 percent of the city's load while it had to stay on call as a peaking plant.

Generation ended before the sale. On November 6, 2015, the Indian River Guardian reported, City Manager Jim O'Connor announced that the Orlando Utilities Commission would no longer call on the Vero Beach plant, leaving Vero Electric a distribution utility buying wholesale power. The paper reported that keeping the plant open and staffed had been costing the customers of Vero Electric some $4 million a year.

Rates and representation drove the push. The 2009 Vero Beach 32963 history found that about 61 percent of customers lived outside the city and only 39 percent inside, so most ratepayers could not vote for the Vero Beach City Council that set their rates. That summer Vero electric rates soared to 58 percent higher than FPL rates, Vero Beach 32963 later recalled, and profits from electric bills were helping fund the city's general budget.

The city formally opened talks in December 2009. Veronews reported in October 2011 that FPL representatives first visited the Vero Beach City Council in December 2009, when the council invited FPL to begin a conversation about a sale of the electric utility, and that FPL had been the only investor-owned utility to respond to the city's request for proposals. In November 2011, according to Vero Beach 32963, voters by a nearly 2-to-1 margin gave the council permission to lease the property under Big Blue as part of a sale.

Contracts with the power agencies were the hard part. Vero Beach had to buy its way out of the Florida Municipal Power Agency co-op for $108 million and settle its Orlando Utilities Commission contract, according to Vero Beach 32963, and FPL raised its offer to $185 million for the system, enough to relieve Vero of its long-term contracts and leave $30 million to $40 million in cash. An FMPA release carried by the Indian River Guardian announced in February 2018 that the required 19 member cities had approved releasing Vero Beach from FMPA power projects.

State regulators then ruled. The FPL newsroom reported on June 5, 2018, that the Florida Public Service Commission approved the purchase of the City of Vero Beach electric utility after a nearly decade-long process, noting that the Vero Beach City Council had approved a $185 million agreement that allows the City to exit its contractual obligations, pay off its debt and receive a cash payment. FPL said its typical 1,000-kWh customer bill was about 20 percent lower than the City of Vero Beach bill. A PSC release stated that under the agreement FPL would purchase the Vero Beach utility system for $185 million by December 31, 2018.

The final steps came at the end of 2018. The Florida Municipal Electric Association, reposting the News Service of Florida, reported that the Public Service Commission gave final approvals on November 27, 2018, ended the territorial agreement that had divided Indian River County between the city utility and FPL, and let FPL charge its own rates to the former Vero Beach customers. At the December 2018 closing, Vero Beach 32963 reported, Big Blue became FPL territory at midnight and the city's bank account was $39 million richer.

The city budget had to adjust. Vero Beach 32963 reported in August 2022 that a glide path funded by sale proceeds was designed to wean Vero Beach off nearly $6 million in annual electric utility transfers to the general fund, that only $500,000 of that cushion remained, and that the city still held more than $21 million in sale cash set aside for redeveloping the riverfront power plant and sewer plant sites.

Big Blue itself stayed on the riverfront into the Three Corners planning. Veronews reported in November 2020 that city officials and the Three Corners Steering Committee were weighing whether to dismantle the 1961 plant or reuse it, and that the 10-year effort to sell Vero Electric had always included clearing the industrial site north of the 17th Street bridge. Electric service at Vero Beach homes and businesses has come from FPL since the December 2018 closing.