Concerned about security at a “Pitchfork Protest” planned for Wednesday outside Duke Energy Florida headquarters, the utility and the event’s organizers have hired off-duty police officers to oversee safety.
The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, a Tennessee-based nonprofit environmental organization, hopes to bring hundreds to protest Duke’s treatment of its customers in recent years.
Protesters plan to wield pitchforks and torches like it’s 1785.
Duke has hired an off-duty St. Petersburg police officer and the Southern Alliance has hired two.
Sgt. Joseph Pratt, who coordinates the hiring of off-duty officers, said Duke “just felt they wanted an officer there to make sure none of their employees were harmed or none of their rights infringed upon.”
Sterling Ivey, a Duke spokesman, said the added security is a typical step the company takes when a protest is planned near the headquarters.
The protest comes amid heated state political campaigns in which Duke has been a focal point of criticism. Duke’s follies are costing its 1.7 million customers billions for failed nuclear projects, and recent billing issues by the utility have caused even more problems for ratepayers.
Susan Glickman of the Southern Alliance, the event organizer, said the group will offer $3.45 to the first 500 protesters who bring a copy of their electric bills, the amount the average Duke customer pays each month for the canceled Levy County nuclear project.
Protesters, she said, can opt for one of 250 free box lunches instead of the cash because, she said, “it shouldn’t be just the utilities getting a free lunch.”
But Glickman said there should be no fear of her group.
Representatives of some local hotels also plan to don white gloves and carry mops and brooms to symbolize their intent to clean up Tallahassee and make way for clean energy — solar in particular.
Speakers at Wednesday’s event will include the national coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots, Debbie Dooley, a Georgia resident who is calling on Florida and conservatives nationwide to embrace solar power because it gives consumers “freedom” and “choice.”
Duke generates less than 1 percent of its electricity from solar.
On Monday, Greenpeace staged a rally outside Duke’s headquarters urging Gov. Rick Scott and his gubernatorial challenger Charlie Crist to push for more solar.
“Gov. Scott, Charlie Crist, neither one has said what they would do with solar energy,” Kate Melges, field organizer for Greenpeace, said at Monday’s rally.
The Greenpeace rally and the pitchfork protest are among a growing number of events targeting Duke and its practices, including:
• Failed and botched nuclear projects that are costing customers billions of dollars.
• Meter and billing mishaps that pushed some residential customers into higher rate tiers.
• Billing demands for large deposits on commercial accounts.
• The billing of churches and small businesses at high rates that are costing them thousands of dollars extra a year.
Duke also wants state regulators to gut energy-efficiency and conservation goals by 90 percent. And the utility just won approval from the Public Service Commission to build a $1.5 billion natural gas plant, even though Duke Energy Florida operated this summer with excess electric generation capacity of 25 percent. The extra capacity jumps to 38 percent come winter.
Some political leaders, such as Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, have said Duke’s actions suggest the utility is no longer a good corporate citizen.