A financial report released Wednesday shows Florida’s second largest utility has seen a significant drop in its net income. An extended outage at the company’s Crystal River Power Plant attributed to the fall in Progress Energy’s second quarter earnings.
Trouble at the out of service Crystal River Nuclear Power plant caused a 64-percent decrease in the company’s net income. Progress Energy was recently acquired by Duke Energy, making Duke the largest electric power company in America. Duke President and CEO Jim Rogers says his company is looking into whether it would be better to fix the nuclear reactor or keep it closed forever. Right now, he says they’ve been looking into the repair costs.
“As of June 2011, the repair costs were estimated at between 900-million and 1.3 billion, based upon preliminary engineering,” said Rogers.
But, Rogers says while those number were just the beginning estimates, the cost estimate to fix the plant could end up even higher.
Rogers gave that report Wednesday when he released separate financial statements for both Duke and Progress Energy on their second quarter earnings. Rogers is expected to appear before the Florida Public Service Commission to give them an update on August 13th.
