FL Regulators Say “No” to More Customer Dollars This Year for FPL’s Speculative Reactors Without a Feasibility Analysis
Contact: Jennifer Rennicks, SACE, 865-235-1448, [email protected]
Florida Regulators Say “No” to More Customer Dollars This Year for FPL’s Speculative Reactors Without a Feasibility Analysis
Commission Supports Staff, Clean Energy Group’s Recommendation for Denial
Tallahassee, Fla. – Earlier today, the Florida Public Service Commission supported its staff’s recommendation and the positions of other parties, such as the Southern Alliance by Clean Energy, by denying Florida Power & Light’s (FPL) request that would have allowed the company to recover costs in 2017 from customers without conducting a feasibility analysis for its increasingly speculative Turkey Point nuclear expansion project. The Commission’s rule requires that the company provide a feasibility analysis to show the two proposed reactors remain a good deal for customers. FPL did not file the study and argued it did not have to file the required analysis.
The nuclear industry is in a financial meltdown as the builder and designer of the reactors, Westinghouse, filed for bankruptcy earlier this year and has exited the nuclear construction business. FPL has never committed to a binding price for the reactors or to construct them at all. FPL customers have already paid $300 million into the proposed Turkey Point expansion project that will almost certainly never be built. Two nuclear reactors of the same design in South Carolina were recently cancelled after the projected cost soared to over $25 billion dollars.
“The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy is pleased with the Commission’s decision to support our customer-friendly recommendation, at least for this year, to stop throwing good customer money after bad for a reactor project that is effectively dead,” said Dr. Stephen A. Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. “This decision is a positive move in the right direction and we look forward to more in the future, but we are disappointed that the Commission left the door open for FPL to come back at a later date to seek additional costs from customers.”
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About Southern Alliance for Clean Energy
Founded in 1985, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy is a nonprofit organization that promotes responsible energy choices that work to address the impacts of global climate change and ensure clean, safe, and healthy communities throughout the Southeast. Learn more at www.cleanenergy.org.