Winter Park Officials Report No Major Power Disruptions During Prolonged Cold Snap
The city, which runs its own electric utility, asked major power users like AdventHealth and Publix to conserve and use generators as usage soared to heat homes and businesses
Feb. 2, 2026
By Beth Kassab
Winter Park Mayor Sheila DeCiccio alerted residents on Monday evening that the city appeared to be through the worst of the impacts from two consecutive days of below freezing temperatures with few disruptions.
An email from DeCiccio relayed a message from Randy Knight:
“Well, we made it through the worst of the cold weather without any brownouts or blackouts,” he wrote. “We had a few minor outage events that impacted approximately 40 customers.”
Winter Park, which owns its owns electric utility, relies most significantly on power produced by natural gas through purchasing agreements with the Florida Municipal Power Agency and the Orlando Utilities Commission.
Knight said he and other officials called big customers in the city such as Publix and AdventHealth and asked them to use generators during peak hours to free up capacity needed to heat homes and businesses.
“… We were cranking out 2.1mw at our Interlachlen Substation Feeder 159 and when Winter Park Hospital turned on their generators it took 1.4mw off that demand,” he said. “That is a good community partner.”
Publix also placed stores across Florida on generators, Knight wrote.
“That went a long way in helping the state utilities make it through this event,” he said.
The city also used generators to power some of its own facilities and temporarily closed some buildings. For example, the Winter Park Library did not open until noon on Monday.
Running central heat for prolonged periods consumes more power than air-conditioning. That caused concerns about whether the utilities had capacity to manage the loads over the weekend and into Monday when temperatures dropped below 30 degrees.
The cold weather was brought on by a major winter storm that impacted multiple states and drove natural gas prices to temporarily sky-high levels as production of the gas decreased during the storm.
Knight told the City Commission last week that if prices remained high it could increase the amount Winter Park residents and businesses pay for electricity.
In October, customer electric rates increased 4%, in part, after the City Commission determined high prices were justified to help raise enough capital to finish the city’s long-running project to underground every power line.
But customer bills actually dropped because the costs associated with fuel (which, again, is mostly natural gas) were low, though fuel prices tend to be volatile.
Knight said last week he expected the commission to have a discussion this month about whether the city will need to up the amount customers pay for fuel beginning in March to recoup some of the higher expenses brought on by the storm.
“Fuel is a pass through to the customer, we don’t make a profit on that part,” he said at the Jan. 28 meeting.
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