Officials stressed that the study doesn’t automatically mean higher rates — it means taking a fresh look at how Lakeland Electric pays its bills, plans for the future, and balances costs across its customer base.
Lakeland Electric typically does a base rate study every four years. The last one wrapped up in 2022, and utility officials say a lot has changed since then — from inflation and interest rates to electric vehicles, work-from-home habits, and new technologies that are reshaping how and when people use power.
“We look at the data and let the data tell us what we need to do,” said Willem Strauss, Lakeland Electric’s assistant general manager of fiscal operations…