Last Thursday, Gulf Power held a leadership forum. President/CEO Susan Story presented how her company sees the region.
While the most are predicting the U.S. unemployment will bottom out in the last quarter of 2009 at around 10 percent, Florida is lagging behind the rest of the country and won’t hit bottom until the first quarter of 2010 at about 11 percent.
For Gulf Power, residential growth, which has averaged 2 percent annually for the past 20 years, is predicted to be flat this year. In 2008, it was 0.1 percent. Commercial growth is negative: 2008 -0.5 percent; 2009 -1.1 percent.
Normally, Gulf Power adds about about 8,000 new residential customers a year. In 2008, they only added 600. Reconnects (either from people and businesses moving to new locations or payment issues) have dropped from the normal 95-97 percent to 65-70 percent.
However, the good news is that Gulf Power has seen a steady increase in customers since January 2009. The climb is not as steep as the fall, but it is moving up. “It’s more like a Nike swoosh, than a the classic ‘V’.”
Okaloosa-Walton region has been hit harder by the recession than Escambia-Santa Rosa. “Where the bubble is the biggest, the burst is the largest.”
On the other hand, Bay County has steep increase–thanks to the new International Airport being built and the new Pier Park.