51st Street Substation

Duke Energy is working hard in your community to improve reliability, reduce outages, strengthen the power grid against severe weather and prepare our system to serve your growing area. As part of this commitment, we are conducting major grid improvement projects in the St. Petersburg and Gulfport areas.

About the Project

We’re upgrading our electric infrastructure in St. Petersburg, including improvements in Gulfport and surrounding areas. Work will be conducted in phases through 2022 and will center around these primary work objectives:

Strengthen the power grid to avoid power outages: Upgrading power lines, poles and essential equipment
Improve reliability and reduce outage time: Installing smart, self-healing technology that automatically detects power outages and quickly reroutes power to restore service faster

Project map

Map showing area in which Duke Energy will upgrade transmission lines.

View a more detailed map.

Frequently Asked Questions

As St. Petersburg continues to grow, we must upgrade and expand the energy infrastructure to power the community. Duke Energy is working hard to make sure that the energy infrastructure connecting the St. Petersburg and Gulfport communities to the electric grid can reliably serve customers now and in the future. Improvements, such as new and upgraded power lines, will help increase electric capacity in the area to sustainably support this growth.
Various phases of the work along roads will include temporary traffic flow changes and potential temporary road closures. Large utility and construction equipment, as well as utility crews, will be present in work zones. Planned outages, while unlikely, may be necessary to complete certain projects. We will notify affected customers prior to any planned outage.

In some instances, crews will also need to work in our right of way behind a customer's home or business to access a power line or other equipment.
We are making strategic improvements to the power grid in St. Petersburg to increase reliability, strengthen the grid against severe weather and other threats, expand innovative technologies like solar battery storage, and provide customers with more control over the energy use and tools to save money.

We are conducting many improvements in St. Petersburg, such as:
- Pole and line upgrades to strengthen the grid against outages from severe weather
- Self-healing technologies that automatically detect power outages and reroute service to restore power faster
- Additional energy pathways and smart technology around critical areas of the city, such as Uptown, the airport and hospitals, to provide new tools to avoid outages and restore power faster when outages occur
- Reliability improvements in areas that have experienced a higher number of outages
- Strategic undergrounding of outage-prone line segments to improve reliability for customers
- Increasing substation and line capacity in fast-growing areas of the region
In addition, Duke Energy customers can access new tools and options through their smart meter, including hourly and daily usage information, to help better manage energy use and save money.

Learn more about the ways Duke Energy is working to build a better energy grid in Florida.

St. Petersburg Area Grid Improvements