The 3,600-MW West County Energy Center, with two recently commissioned power blocks and a third just entering start-up, is the first “greenfield” combined-cycle plant constructed by FPL since the 1970s. Thanks to FPL’s long history with repowering projects, the project team commissioned Unit 2 seven months early, with no operator errors during start-up. At just over $600/kW, the cost of the plant was a bargain.
NextEra Energy Inc. (formerly FPL Group) has two operating subsidiaries: Florida Power & Light Co. (FPL) and NextEra Energy Resources, a competitive energy subsidiary that produces electricity using wind, solar, hydro, natural gas, oil, and nuclear energy. FPL, the regulated utility, serves about 4.5 million customers in 35 counties with the lowest residential rates of Florida’s 55 utilities.
Over the past 10 years, FPL’s average annual customer growth has soared 1.8%, much higher than the national average of about 1.2% over the same period. Power sales have dropped over the past couple of years, as at the majority of utilities across the nation, yet FPL still set a new system demand record of 24,354 MW on January 11, 2010, due to the coldest weather in decades. Today, FPL’s total installed capacity is 24,530 MW, plainly showing the immediate need for additional generation to reliably serve its customers.
For much of the past decade, FPL has pursued either repowering existing or constructing new power generation facilitates with high-efficiency combined-cycle technology. In 2003, POWER recognized the Fort Myers Repowering Project as a Top Plant for adding an incremental 960 MW to the grid. In 2004, the Sanford Repowering Project was named a Top Plant for completing a 1,150-MW plant upgrade. FPL next added 1,900 MW with the 2005 Martin and Manatee plant additions, followed by the 1,150-MW Turkey Point 5 combined cycle in 2007. Today, natural gas fires over 75% of FPL’s generation, followed by nuclear (12%), oil (8.7%), and coal (3.7%).
FPL has christened the next fleet of combined-cycle projects “Next Generation Clean Energy Centers.” These new plants include the twin power block 2,400-MW West County Energy Center (WCEC) and its third 1,200-MW power block now undergoing start-up. On the same day as the new system peak record was set, WCEC exceeded its cold winter expected output by 50 MW per unit by producing 2,717 MW net from the first two power blocks a month after Unit 2 entered service.
Up next in the FPL combined-cycle queue are the 1,250-MW Cape Canaveral Energy Center (2013) and the 1,250-MW Riviera Energy Center (2014).
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