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1.7 million Floridians may soon be paying more for electricity. The Florida Public Service Commission will vote on a 48 million dollar rate increase for Progress Energy later today. The company says the increase is needed to keep up with the growing demand. As Whitney Ray tells us, the demand has never been greater.

Roslyn Linnen is trying to stay warm on a budget. She keeps her thermostat at 68 degrees in the day and at night.

“I turn it off and put a lot of blankets on and wear a flannel and my robe,” said Roslyn.

Roslyn joined a dozen other AARP members at the Florida Public Service Commission Monday to protest Progress Energy’s rate hike request. Progress Energy says it needs more money to keep up with the needs of the growing population.

The cold weather is increasing the demand for electricity. Last week the demand was so high that Progress Energy set a new record for usage.

The company reported isolated outages. Power was intentionally cut at 14 schools to save energy. Progress Energy says without more money to update equipment, outages could become more common and the company may also have to resort to more power saving measures like rolling brownouts.

“If we don’t have adequate funding in the future we may not be able to provide our customers the same quality of service and so you could end up seeing some more of those issues,” said Progress Energy Spokesman Tim Leljedal.

Issues they say need to be prepared for now if their customers are going to have a brighter future. If the increase is approved it would go into effect in March. The average monthly increase per customer will be calculated on January 28th