Florida Power and Light and Duke Energy will continue collecting money from customers to pay for nuclear power projects. The state’s utility regulators approved the 2016 nuclear cost recovery plan Monday.
FPL customers using 1-thousand kilowatt hours will pay 34-cents each month, while Duke Energy customers using the same amount of energy will pay nearly $2. The state’s nuclear cost recovery rules are controversial, as many say they’re paying for power plants they may never benefit from. And Florida lawmakers have recently amended those rules. But Public Service Commissioner, Lisa Edgar says the intent of those rules hasn’t changed.
“That alternative cost recovery mechanisms for the recovery costs of incurred in the citing, design, licensing and construction of a nuclear power plant, including newly expanded or relocated electrical transmission lines and facilities that are necessary thereto, must be designed to promote utility investment in nuclear. And I think that is what is occurring here today,” Edgar said, quoting the Florida law.
Under the 2016 Cost Recovery agreement, Florida Power and Light will take in $34.2-million for two planned nuclear units at its Turkey Point facility. Meanwhile, under a settlement involving consumer advocates, Duke will receive $56.4 million in cost recovery. That money is linked to dollars already spent on an uprate project at its now shuttered Crystal River plant.
