Spotlight On: Dale Calhoun, Executive Director, Florida Natural Gas Association
Key points:
- • Florida’s growing natural gas demand is driving infrastructure expansion.
- • Natural gas supports hurricane resilience through backup power and reliable energy access.
- • Affordable energy and renewable natural gas are creating long-term economic opportunities.
October 2026 —Invest: spoke with Dale Calhoun, executive director of the Florida Natural Gas Association, about the role of natural gas in Florida’s growth, resilience, and energy affordability. “Florida’s natural gas market provides a cost advantage that is going to be sustained over decades to come,” Calhoun said.
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What is the role of the Florida Natural Gas Association, and what have been some recent milestones for the organization?
The Florida Natural Gas Association is a statewide organization representing the natural gas industry in Florida. Our focus is on providing access to the end uses of natural gas, whether industrial, commercial, or residential.
We represent investor-owned gas utilities across the state. In Jacksonville and Nassau counties, that includes TECO Peoples Gas and Florida Public Utilities, as well as Beaches Energy to the south. Across the state, we also have five interstate pipelines that come into Florida from places such as Savannah, Texas, and Mississippi. Those pipelines serve industrial and commercial customers, and they ultimately help deliver gas down to residential customers.
We also have two intrastate pipeline members serving large loads across the state where a utility may not be able to reach or where it may not be feasible for an interstate pipeline to serve. In addition, we have supplier members that provide everything from engineering and business operations to products, materials, underground excavation, pipeline services, welding, and cathodic protection. They support the infrastructure side of the industry beyond the day-to-day work of utilities and pipelines.
Over the past few years, we have been busy representing the interests of the industry and working on many fronts to provide natural gas to more Floridians. We recently completed an economic impact study. Since 2018, residential customer growth has increased 26% in Florida, which is more than double the rate of new residences in the state.
Total natural gas usage in Florida increased by 218% from 1997 to 2024, compared with 46% growth nationally. There is significant demand for natural gas in Florida because it is a cost saver for industrial customers, restaurants, hotels, residents, and others.
The U.S. Department of Energy recently estimated that residential customers using natural gas for end-use appliances save about $1,000 a year on home energy costs. Many people moving to Florida from the Midwest, Northeast, or Canada are accustomed to using natural gas for heating, cooking, and water heating. They also recognize that Florida has hurricanes, and they want backup generators.
How does natural gas support Florida’s resilience, particularly during hurricanes?
Since Hurricane Irma, demand for backup generators has far exceeded the ability to get infrastructure to people. As new developments go in, we are putting in the infrastructure to serve not only generators but also cooking, water heating, and outdoor living features. Natural gas has become both a luxury and, at times, a necessity.
Florida’s building codes have become strong. Emergency operations experts have said that if someone lives in a home built after 1997 in Florida, they may be better off staying home and riding out a hurricane rather than evacuating. If people are staying home, they want a generator to keep them comfortable with air conditioning, refrigeration, and other needs.
Natural gas already provides cooking and hot water, and when paired with a generator, it can help residents remain comfortable during outages. Grocery stores and other businesses with perishable items have also transitioned toward natural gas backup generators because it can be cheaper to invest upfront than to lose large amounts of product after a storm.
Jacksonville is also an important market for natural gas transportation. JTA uses natural gas in its bus fleet, and trucking companies operating out of Jacksonville, including UPS, use natural gas to power their fleets. Waste haulers are also large users. JAXPORT has been a tremendous adopter and a frontrunner nationally in using natural gas as a maritime fuel.
Florida has the second-largest natural gas-fueled on-road vehicle fleet in the country by size and usage. That has been a strong success story, helping businesses save money while reducing emissions.
What trends are most influencing the natural gas industry today?
Direct use of natural gas is extremely efficient. For uses such as boilers, water heaters, factory heat, cooking, and other heating needs, 92 out of every 100 million BTUs of source energy make it directly to the home or business. Only about 8% is lost from the wellhead to the burner tip.
With electricity, from the power plant to the home or business, only about 38 out of every 100 million BTUs make it to the customer. Then that electricity often has to create heat through electric resistance. Natural gas is already delivering that heat after losing only 8%, so it is more efficient for heating applications.
There are also important technologies being put in place. Most new power plants that are not solar or renewable are natural gas. Natural gas turbines provide quick, ready, dispatchable power.
In Nassau County, Florida Public Utilities worked with Rayonier on a combined heat and power plant. That plant produces electricity for local customers at a lower cost than previously purchased power, while also creating the steam and energy needed for Rayonier’s processing at the WestRock facility. It helped keep the facility operational, meet emissions requirements, and lower costs for electric ratepayers on the island.
Another major trend is renewable natural gas. TECO Peoples Gas in Jacksonville and Florida Public Utilities in Nassau are working with dairy farmers and landfills across Florida to create renewable natural gas and put it into the pipeline.
A diesel-powered vehicle can run on traditional natural gas and reduce emissions. With renewable natural gas, depending on the source, methane capture, or waste digestion process, a vehicle can run at negative emissions rather than positive emissions. That is a major attraction for transportation companies. Many large trucking companies can meet their 2050 emissions goals today with renewable natural gas, at basically the same price they pay for diesel.
What is your outlook for Florida’s energy landscape over the next decade?
Florida’s growth is tremendous. The United States is expected to grow by 17.5% between 2020 and 2050. Florida is expected to grow by almost 39%, or about 8.5 million new residents. That growth will represent 14.5% of all expected U.S. population growth.
We have slowed somewhat from prior years, but we are still looking at a tremendous amount of growth between now and 2050. The ability to expand natural gas infrastructure and reach more consumers as Florida grows into new areas will only benefit those customers.
Energy is a cost shared by everyone within rate categories. As infrastructure expands and reaches more customers, more customers share the cost, which helps bring that cost down for everyone.
The price of natural gas out to 2050 is stable. There is growth in U.S. natural gas use, and there is international growth in demand for natural gas as an energy source to be exported. Those factors will continue to drive exploration and transportation of gas from the wellhead to the burner tip.
Natural gas is stable and U.S.-based. With everything happening internationally over the past year, natural gas has remained stable. There is also an opportunity to hedge into the future and secure today’s pricing for future use, which many companies are doing.
Florida’s natural gas market provides a cost advantage that is going to be sustained for decades to come. It will help keep energy prices low. About 75% of Florida’s electricity is generated using natural gas. As long as gas markets stay in check with projected demand and production, natural gas will be a major driver in allowing businesses and individuals to access affordable, stable energy.
Natural gas also contributes about $6.3 billion in new GDP to Florida, a little over $570 million in new state and local tax revenue, and just over 61,000 net new jobs in Florida in 2025. Those are significant numbers and show the broader economic role of the industry.
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