Florida Power & Light

Lighting more than just Florida's bulbs

With total 1997 assets of $12.4 billion, more than 10,000 employees and an average of 3.6 million customer accounts, Juno Beach-based FPL Group is the second largest independent power provider in the nation. The company consists of Florida Power & Light and FPL Energy Inc., which serves areas outside Florida.

FPL Energy, a consolidation of ESI Energy Inc. and FPL Group International, has operations in 11 states (possibly more pending an acquisition of plants from Central Maine Power Company), as well as in Northern Ireland and Colombia. It is also a world leader in wind generation with more than 900 MW of projects either in operation or under development.

FPL Group also has holdings outside the power business: Turner Foods Corporation, a citrus producer, and Olympus, a Florida cable television company partnership with Adelphia Comunications. All in all, stockholders have enjoyed a comfortable performance of about 17 percent in price appreciation plus dividends since 1990.

Powering Up

In Southwest Florida, FPL faces an increasing challenge. The area is growing 40 percent faster than FPL's other service territories.

And Florida Power and Light is rising to meet the challenge. In the next few years, the company has planned a $500 million restructuring -- or "repowering" -- of its 40-year-old Fort Myers plant. The repowering project, scheduled for an early 2002 completion, will modify the oil-fueled plant to produce cleaner, more efficient power with natural gas.

The plant's days of being a landmark for the masses flying into Southwest Florida are about to end. The trademark twin red and white smokestacks will be torn down, replaced by four smaller stacks of about half the size. The whole facility will be a cleaner, leaner, less noticeable production machine.

Making power through conventional means involves several steps: the burning of a fuel to produce heat, transferring the heat into a boiler, heating water into steam and using the steam to turn a turbine, which runs an electric generator.

Oil has traditionally been FPL's primary energy fuel, but after the OPEC crisis of 1974, the company began to spread out into other possibilities. "Today we have a pretty diversified portfolio of sources," explains FPL Regional External Affairs Manager Grover Whidden.

The "portfolio" includes gas, coal and controversial nuclear power. FPL has interest in two nuclear sites in south Dade County and in St. Lucie. At peak summer capacity, the nuclear holdings can produce nearly 3,000 MW, representing 25 percent of FPL's energy mix. They operate at a combined availability of about 85 percent, substantially above the 75 percent industry average.

Whidden says that in recent years the trend toward nuclear power has faded somewhat, both due to increasingly heavy restrictions on building plants and general public sentiment against it. "We're lucky that we've been able to run our plants safely and effectively," he says, "but a lot of companies have had problems."

Naturally More Efficient

After it is repowered, the Fort Myers plant will operate with natural gas that will drive turbines with technology similar to jet engines, Whidden says. The result will be far less visible emissions. Waste heat will be captured to make still more electric. "For a given amount of fuel, you can get a considerable amount more power," he says.

From the switch, FPL expects a 30 percent more efficient system, moving from a peak production of 544 to about 900MW. The resulting efficiency won't necessarily lower Southwest Florida rates, Whidden says, because the Fort Myers plant is only a small part of a whole statewide system feeding power to any one location. "Understand that our rates are based on all these plants," he says. He adds, however, that the changes will help to keep rates down as part of a better statewide system.

The gas will be piped to the plant, eliminating the need for shipping or storage in Boca Grande. Whidden remains mum as to what company will supply the gas, but says FPL will probably be making an announcement in coming months. The gas provided to the plant will have nothing to do with the Tampa-based TECO Energy's endeavor to bring natural gas into Southwest Florida, he adds.

Repowering the Fort Myers plant is a part of FPL's latest 10-year plan of action. After a successful 1992 repowering in Fort Lauderdale, the company looked ahead to other plants that could be modified for better efficiency. Following the Fort Myers conversion in 2002, FPL plans to repower its plant in Sanford by 2004 and to expand its Martin County plant by 2007. The end result will be a total power provision system that is 14 percent more efficient - that's 2,500MW more power.

Plans Gone Awry

FPL is still stinging from an ill-fated plan to convert an oil-fired Manatee County plant into orimulsion, a less-expensive, coal-like liquid slurry commonly used in Central and South America. The conversion plan was initially accepted by regulatory agencies but later voted down by the governor's office due in large part to environmentalist opposition. "We basically abandoned that," Whidden says of the project.

The Fort Myers plant itself was also recently under scrutiny as part of the "Dirty Dozen" list complied by the Florida Clean Power Coalition, a state environmental lobbying group. The plant placed seventh on a list of 12 Florida power production facilities based on the levels of pollutants emitted into the air.

Whidden points out, however, that the plant is by no means breaking the law - because of its age, it is subject to different emission standards than a new plant would be. "It operates completely within its permits," he says, adding that once the plant is repowered, it will completely meet all new plant regulations.

And the idea that private industry is in odds with the environment - Whidden says it just isn't true. "Some environmentalists think that businesses in particular, we just don't care," he says. "That's just not true. We want our facilities to operate in harmony with the environment."

He also points to the mountain of permits required for any decision, including the Fort Myers repowering project. "One of the things people don't realize is that not only is it a large construction process, but the permitting process can take years," he says.

Meeting Business Needs

Providing power is only half the story in FPL's business. "The bigger challenge is meeting the needs of a diverse customer [base]," Whidden s