JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – JEA is failing to plan a transition to local, affordable, and reliable clean energy, the Sierra Club’s 2025 Dirty Truth report found.
According to the report, JEA has received its third consecutive “F” grade despite the utility’s grade increasing from 4 out of 100 last year to 7 out of 100 this year.
The annual Dirty Truth Report grades 75 utilities across the country on their plans to retire coal plants by 2030, not build new gas plants through 2035, and transition to clean energy through 2035. According to the report, while JEA customers’ electricity bills are rapidly increasing, the utility is “overwhelmingly failing” to transition to clean energy.
“It is alarming that for the first time since 2021, utilities are regressing on their clean energy transition,” said Sierra Club Chief Program Officer Holly Bender. “By adding more gas and keeping costly coal plants online, utility companies are ignoring renewable energy—the cheapest form of energy—and forcing their customers to pay more."
This past spring, JEA approved a rate increase to help pay the annual debt from Plant Vogtle, a nuclear power facility being built in Georgia. JEA is responsible for $3 billion of its cost.
“Our annual debt service for Plant Vogtle is $170 million a year. A hundred and 70 million a year. And that’s just for debt service,“ JEA spokesperson Karen McAllister said last week.
The rate increase is set to take effect on Oct. 1.
RELATED | Bill for troubled Plant Vogtle coming due soon, that means more rate increases for JEA customers
In 2022, the Sierra Club and other environmental groups called on JEA to shut down the Northside Generating Station within the next 30 years, claiming their studies showed it’s one of the biggest air polluters in Jacksonville.
In August, JEA unanimously voted to proceed with plans to build a brand-new generating plant at the site of the former St. Johns River Power Park.
According to JEA, the new natural gas plant will help enhance power generation capabilities and meet the community’s growing energy needs in the years to come. It is expected to be operational by 2031, with the total project cost not to exceed $1.57 billion.
“JEA has time and time again shown its allegiance to high-polluting, high-cost fossil fuel power,” said Suzanne Sapp, Sierra Club Senior Campaign Organizer said in response to the new gas plant plans. “These volatile energy sources threaten public health and skyrocket our energy bill. Instead of continuing to burn expensive coal into the future, JEA can take advantage of solar incentives now and retire Northside’s aging coal units. Doing so would cut energy bills for Jacksonville families and put our city on track to a sustainable, affordable energy future.”
MORE | ‘So proud and happy’: JEA Board approves new $1.57B generating plant to boost power supply
News4JAX asked JEA about the report, and a spokesperson says the utility is working to diversify its energy mix to keep power reliable, affordable, and sustainable for customers. The utility notes that residential customers currently pay some of the lowest combined utility bills in Florida.
The construction of a new combined cycle natural gas plant at the former St. Johns River Power Park site is intended to boost system reliability and meet growing energy demand. According to JEA, the plant will:
- Reduce carbon emissions by using both a gas turbine and a steam turbine, which captures and reuses waste heat.
- Improve efficiency — 64% more efficient than older generation technology.
- Lower overall CO2 emissions by replacing an older, less efficient plant.
- Support economic growth by providing reliable energy for businesses.
- Adapt to the future with the potential to run on hydrogen or other low-carbon fuels.
The new plant will replace power currently generated by the nearly 50-year-old Northside Generating Station Unit 3, a natural gas unit that JEA plans to retire in 2031.
The utility also addressed concerns about its two coal-fired units at Northside. JEA says those units, built in the early 2000s with Department of Energy support, run on a mix of petroleum coke, coal, natural gas, and biomass. The boilers were designed with environmental benefits in mind, and JEA says they are among the cleanest units in its fleet—though they do produce CO2.
Coal and petroleum coke made up a small portion of JEA’s fuel mix in 2024—about 6% combined and are only used during extreme weather or fuel supply constraints, the utility said. The majority of JEA’s power came from natural gas (62%), followed by purchased power (18%), nuclear (9.6%), and solar (3.4%).