Jul. 29--While Florida Power & Light seeks a billion-dollar increase in its basic rates, its parent company, FPL Group, reported a 77 percent increase in quarterly earnings Tuesday, driven partly by market hedges on energy contracts.

The utility reported a small decline in profit, caused by more empty homes due to foreclosure and lower customer usage as people tightened their belts during the recession. But that decline was more than compensated for by a good showing of the company's unregulated energy division.

Altogether, the energy giant earned a profit of $370 million, or 91 cents a share, compared with $209 million, or 52 cents a share, for the same period last year. Removing unusual one-time items, FPL Group executives said, earnings were $401 million for the quarter, up from $375 million last year.

NextEra Energy Resources, the unregulated arm that operates throughout the country, saw net income increase by $183 million, while Florida Power & Light's decreased by $4 million, to $213 million.

Sales of electricity dropped 2.8 percent compared with last year. About 313,000 homes appeared to be empty, according to FPL meters -- an increase of 68,000 since the end of 2007. For the quarter, the average number of customers dropped by 16,000.

On Monday, the day before the earnings release, David E. Parker, an energy analyst with Robert W. Baird & Co., maintained an a outperform rating on FPL Group because FPL's "regulatory environment is constructive," meaning the utility enjoys a good relationship with state regulators and is not likely to be hurt financially by their actions.

The Public Service Commission is in the midst of a lengthy rate case, scheduled to end with a decision next fall. Its findings are based upon the performance and needs of the utility and not the unregulated activities of NextEra.

The utility is seeking a 30 percent increase in its base rate -- from $39 to $51 a month for the average customer. Altogether, it's seeking an additional $1 billion from its 4.5 million customers in 2010 and $247 million more in 2011.

The utility maintains it needs the rate increase to improve its infrastructure and to give its investors a competitive rate of return of 12.5 percent.

Even with a rate hike, FPL maintains customers are likely to see a decrease in their bills between December 2009 and January 2010, because of lower fuel costs. A resident using 1,000 kilowatt hours a month could see a $5 drop in his bill, the utility says.

With the rate change, the customer using 1,000 kWh will pay $51.71 for the base rate, $37.09 for fuel, $15.83 for other, for a total bill of $104.63, according to FPL calculations.