A Duke Energy-commissioned study estimates it would cost St. Petersburg between $2.75 billion and $4.1 billion to seize the company’s local electric system and stand up a city-run utility. The numbers arrived as the city waits on its own $590,000 analysis and after its 30-year franchise agreement expired July 31.

Concentric Energy Advisors, hired by Duke, projects seven to 10 years before a municipal utility could operate independently, with a start date of 2033 or 2036. The current net book value of assets serving St. Petersburg customers is about $693 million. By the time any purchase closed, those assets alone could run $1.25 billion to $1.65 billion. Separation and reconstruction would add another $1.18 billion to $1.88 billion. That work includes roughly 150 miles of new distribution lines, 16 miles of transmission lines, four substations and two underwater crossings because Duke’s grid in the city is tightly interwoven with Gulfport, St. Pete Beach, Treasure Island and other Pinellas communities.

Startup costs for staffing, vehicles, control centers, billing, outage systems and cybersecurity would add $185 million to $330 million. Transaction costs and reserves could tack on $144 million to $240 million more. The study also flags $300 million to $550 million in possible stranded generation and power-supply costs that sit outside the headline range, plus unquantified expenses to replicate Duke’s automated grid technology.

Local business leaders say the figures confirm what they already feared. Jason Mathis, CEO of the St. Petersburg Downtown Partnership, noted the city does not have billions sitting around and faces more immediate infrastructure strain. “Whether it’s $1 billion, $2 billion or $4 billion, it’s money that the city doesn’t have,” he said. Chris Steinocher of the St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce pointed to stormwater and sewage systems that already need attention. “This just isn’t the right time.” Both suggested a simpler path to lower bills: drop the 6 percent franchise fee and the utility tax that Duke previously collected and remitted to the city—about $23 million a year—rather than buy an entire grid.

Clearwater commissioned a similar study from the same firm St. Petersburg hired, NewGen Strategies and Solutions, then walked away from municipalization and signed a new long-term deal with Duke. Mathis warned that detaching St. Petersburg from neighboring systems would be even more complicated than Clearwater’s effort. Steinocher predicted the city’s forthcoming report will land in the same ballpark because “some of this is real figures that can’t be fudged.”

Duke Energy Florida communications director Ana Gibbs called a government takeover “unaffordable and irresponsible.” Residents, she said, would ultimately pay through higher taxes, new fees or cuts to other public services. Duke and its predecessors have delivered service in the area for decades; the company argues the proven arrangement should be renewed rather than replaced with an untested municipal experiment.

City Council voted 4-3 in June to fund the NewGen study, citing high bills and a desire for negotiating leverage as the old franchise ended. Activists have launched a petition drive to put municipalization on the ballot. No decision has been made, and electric service continues. The practical question now is whether St. Petersburg can justify billions in acquisition, reconstruction, and operating risk when the city already struggles to fund core infrastructure and when a neighboring city recently chose the cheaper, faster route of a new private-utility contract.

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