FPL to close last coal plant
Jacksonville’s St. Johns River Power Park going offline 34 years early.
TALLAHASSEE — The 2018 closure of the St. Johns River Power Park, a coal-fired plant in Jacksonville, is expected to save Florida Power & Light Co. customers $183 million over the years, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 5.6 million tons a year.
On Monday, the Florida Public Service Commission unanimously approved a settlement agreement between FPL and the Office of Public Counsel that covers how the financial aspect of the closure will be handled as far as amortization of the plant’s value goes.
The 1,252-megawatt coal-fired electric generating plant is jointly owned by Juno Beach-based FPL and JEA, Jacksonville’s municipal electric provider. Built in the early 1980s, it was originally set to keep operating until 2052.
FPL attorney John Butler said the agreement’s approval allows FPL to move forward with early shutdown of the plant. FPL owns 20 percent of the plant and JEA owns 80 percent. Both have used the plant for power generation, with FPL taking its 20 percent share of the generation capacity and buying an additional 30 percent from JEA.
The typical FPL customer who uses 1,000 kilowatt hours a month will save 33 cents a month in 2018, and varying amounts over the next 35 years, PSC staff said.
PSC Chairman Julie Brown said, “I think this makes a lot of sense. It is getting an inefficient unit offline.”
FPL and the public counsel reached a compromise that allows amortization to start in July and continue over a 15-year period. The original proposal called for a delay in amortization until base rates are reset, and then for a 10-year amortization schedule.
Since 2001, FPL has moved away from coal and oil as fuel to run its plants and instead began using larger amounts of natural gas. While natural gas is also a fossil fuel, it burns cleaner than oil and coal. FPL uses natural gas to produce about 70 percent of its power, and the company has saved $8.6 billion in fuel costs.
JEA plans to retain the 1,600acre property for future use and will take the lead in the plant’s dismantlement.
This year, JEA said it has excess generating capacity due to customers conserving energy, and as a result, the plant produced half as much electricity as it did 10 years ago.
The plant’s retirement will reduce JEA’s carbon footprint by 30 percent and its nitrogen to the St. Johns River.
The closure will mark the last of FPL’s coal-fired plants in Florida. It still has ownership in the coal-fired Plant Scherer near Juliette, Ga.
In 1981, the PSC approved the St. Johns River Power Park after FPL and JEA said they needed a power plant that used a fuel source other than oil, as oil prices had skyrocketed.
Oil was FPL’s major source of fuel then. Now coal and oil account for under 5 percent.
Over the last two years, FPL bought out contracts with two independently owned coal-fired power plants with the goal of shutting down both plants and saving hundreds of millions of dollars for customers as well as reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The first of these, the Cedar Bay plant in Jacksonville, ceased operations in December 2016. The second, the Indiantown co-generation plant in Martin County, is on track to close in 2019.