If you’ve ever been to Walt Disney World, then you know first hand just how massive
of a resort it is.
The land, which is twice the size of Manhattan, is what allowed them to build the 20+ hotels,
the four theme parks, the water parks, the shopping district, and all of the behind-the-scenes
buildings that are required to make it all work.
All of that obviously needs electricity, so with that said, what does Walt Disney World’s
electricity bill look like?
Now if you’re just here for a number, according to the Reedy Creek Improvement District’s
2017 annual utilities report, the districts total cost for the 1.2 million MWh generated
in 2017 totals out at $97,321,843
But what does that mean?
Well to contextualize that, first we need to talk a little bit about the Reedy Creek Improvement District.
I have a video from a while back that digs deeper into the history of the district, but
the short version is that the Reedy Creek Improvement District is the governing jurisdiction
that Walt Disney World sits within.
You see, when Walt Disney World was first conceptualized, the entire focus of the project
was on EPCOT.
It was Walt’s idea for a city of the future that people would work in, live in, and visit.
He felt that in order for it to truly be a city of the future, he needed to be able to
cut through the red tape that would slow down the adoption of cutting edge construction,
transportation, and educational techniques.
That’s where Reedy Creek comes in.
It was created in 1967 so that Disney could, to an extent, govern themselves.
I mention all of this because while The Walt Disney Company doesn’t publicly disclose
the power usage of their theme parks, the Reedy Creek Improvement District does publish
their electricity statistics, and since the district effectively is Disney World, it’s
easy to map it over.
So where does Disney get all of this power?
As some of you might have heard, Disney does have two power plants on property.
There’s the main plant, which is the Central Energy Plant, or CEP, that can sometimes generate
as much as a third of the power they use on a month to month basis.
There’s also a second plant called the Epcot Central Energy Plant, which is located, as
you might have guessed, near Epcot, that serves as a source of emergency backup power.
There’s also a Mickey Shaped solar farm on property, however that’s actually operated
by Duke Energy, who sells the electricity to Disney directly.
That leads me to their primary source of power, which is: they buy it.
The Reedy Creek Improvement District purchases electricity from over nine regional suppliers
which makes up the majority of the energy used on property.
Now about that energy.
What does 1.2 million MWh of electricity look like?
It’s a big number, but without context it’s hard to imagine what that means.
So for comparison, consider that according to the US Energy Information Administration,
the average US home consumes around 10.7 MWh of energy every year.
In other words, one days worth of electricity at Walt Disney World would be enough to power
your home for around 300 years.
For another perspective though, consider for a moment that the city of San Francisco and
its 800,000+ residents requires around 18,000 MWh per day while Disney World uses roughly
3,300 MWh per day.
Finally, According to the EIA, the entire state of Florida in 2016 generated a total
of 238.2 million MWh of electricity.
That means Disney’s annual power usage amounts to just around half of one percent of the
state total.
Still, It’s a massive amount of power, but Walt Disney World is a massive place.
It requires the power of a small city because it essentially is one, and it’s one that’s
trying to look towards the future.
Part of that is experimenting with alternative forms of generating electricity such as anaerobic digestion.
I have a whole other video about that, and how they use their leftover food to help keep
the lights on.
They’re also in the process of building a 270 acre solar farm with Origis Energy that’ll
eventually be able to power two of the four theme parks on property.
So the next time you’re hit with that heat wave, run the AC all day, and fear for that
next electric bill, at least be grateful that it’s not as high as Disney World’s.