“Is TECO Raising Rates to Build Out AI Data Center’s Power Needs” This is Something to Think About 11.05.25
Something to Think About
Audio By Carbonatix
“Is TECO Raising Rates to Build Out AI Data Center’s Power Needs”
Bill Bunkley’s “This Is Something to Think About”
Air Date Wednesday, November 5, 2025
If TECO, aka Tampa Electric Company, is your power provider, you'll be hit with another rate increase in January.
In just five years, TECO customers have seen their power bills increase on average 82%, or $939 per year.
In January, TECO raised its rate $9 to $13. In March, they raised it $20 to $25 a month. And in June, they hit their customers with another 10% increase.
These multiple rate hikes are for different stated purposes. But one has to wonder about TECO’s need to build out its future power grid to accommodate the power of AI Data Centers. That’s an expensive proposition and it should not rest on the shoulders of their residential customers.
This recent increase comes at a time when many customers are hard-pressed just to cover groceries.
Bill Bunkley is a 19-year veteran Salem Media talk show host based in Tampa. The Bill Bunkley Show airs weekdays from 3 to 6 pm across central Florida. Bill is also President of the Florida Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and the legislative consultant to the Florida Baptist State Convention (Southern Baptist Convention Churches), among other churches and entities. He has served as the legislative consultant to the Florida Baptist State Convention for the last 29 years at the state capitol in Tallahassee. By the Grace of his Lord Jesus, he is today a cancer survivor diagnosed in 2018 with AML Leukemia, having successfully undergone a bone marrow transplant that same year. His wife is Toni, son is Zac, and they attend Idlewild Baptist Church.
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