FPL: No rate hike, no power plant upgrade

from floridatoday.com:

"Citing Wednesday’s “no” vote on its proposed rate increase by the Florida Public Service Commission, Florida Power & Light Co. announced it will immediately suspend its planned upgrade of the Cape Canaveral plant in Port St. John, the $1.2 billion natural gas pipeline to feed the plant and several other projects statewide.

The projects representing about $10 billion of investment over the next five years in the state’s energy infrastructure, FPL officials said.

“We understand that there is never a good time to raise base rates,” FPL Group Chairman and CEO Lew Hay said in a release. “However, our proposal provided a unique opportunity to lower customers’ total bills while simultaneously investing billions of dollars in our state for upgraded and more efficient electrical infrastructure - all of which would have significant benefits for our customers.”

FPL wanted to raise its base rates 30 percent. It would have given the company an additional $9 a month on the base-rate portion of the typical customer bill, bringing FPL about $1 billion this year.

But customers’ bills would still declined by $6 a month because of savings from efficiency improvements at FPL’s power plants and lower fuel prices, the company said.

Instead, the PSC unanimously rejected FPL’s request, allowing an increase of $75.4 million. That comes to about 75 cents per month on the typical 1,000-kilowatt-hour bill.

“Needless to say, we are very disappointed for our customers and the state that this opportunity appears lost,” Hay said.

FPL’s planned projects would have created an estimated 20,000 direct and indirect construction and related jobs over the next five years, the company said. According to the company’s press release, others that FPL will immediately suspend include:

# Development of two new nuclear reactors at Turkey Point near Miami beyond what’s required to receive a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

# Numerous discretionary infrastructure projects to improve efficiency and reliability within the company’s power, transmission and distribution units.

According to the release, FPL plans to assess the cost of ongoing operations, “review other capital investments for appropriate reductions” and to “make further decisions on all of these matters no later than the end of the second quarter.”