POWER September 2013 - 38

TOP PLANTS
Cape Canaveral Next Generation
Clean Energy Center,
Brevard County, Florida
Owner/operator: Florida Power & Light
Courtesy: FPL
Continuing a drive to build one of the cleanest, most efficient fleets in the country,
Florida Power & Light just flipped the switch on its state-of-the-art Cape Canaveral
Next Generation Clean Energy Center, a three-unit, 1,200-MW facility that will help
meet the needs of a power-hungry state-in addition to keeping some manatees
warm.
By Thomas Overton
N
o one can accuse Florida Power
& Light (FPL) of having anything
against natural gas.
The biggest consumer of gas in a state
with the second-biggest appetite for the
fuel, and by far the state's largest utility,
NextEra Energy subsidiary FPL is in the
midst of a major drive to modernize and
upgrade its fleet, with six new combined
cycle plants either just commissioned,
under construction, or in the planning
stages. The newest plant to come online
is the three-unit, 1,200-MW Cape Canaveral
Next Generation Clean Energy Center
in Brevard County, just across the Intracoastal
Waterway from the Kennedy Space
Center.
The plant employs Siemens' flagship
SGT6-8000H turbines, the 60-hertz version
of the sets used in the Irsching 4
Power Station in Germany (a 2011 POWER
Top Plant), which set a world record
38
for combined cycle efficiency at 60.75%.
The SGT6-8000H can go from standby to
start in just 5 minutes, and to full power
in just 15 minutes. The Siemens turbines
help make the new plant at least 33% more
efficient than the 1960s-era thermal plant
it replaced. The new plant also generates
only half the carbon dioxide emissions and
90% less pollutants than the old plant, despite
having 50% greater capacity.
Bumps in the Road
Getting here, however, wasn't entirely
straightforward.
FPL first proposed replacing the old Cape
Canaveral plant in 2008. The two-unit, 800MW
dual-fuel facility, which was built in
part to supply power for the new Kennedy
Space Center, first came online in 1965 but
had outlived its usefulness as oil and gas
prices climbed in the 2000s. In order to
maintain reserve margins when it took the
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old plant offline, however, FPL first had to
add a third unit to its West County plant in
Palm Beach.
The Florida Public Service Commission
(PSC) approved the proposal in September
2008. Final approval to proceed with construction
was received in October 2009-
just as the bottom fell out of the global
financial markets and the PSC denied a rate
increase to pay for a new natural gas pipeline
into the state. In January 2010, citing
that decision and the deteriorating economy,
FPL suspended the plans for Cape Canaveral
for several months. In April, it decided
to move ahead again while at the same time
laying off about 300 of its staff. Despite the
rate decision, FPL decided that the need for
the new plant was too great to put off construction
any longer.
But there was another, entirely different
wrinkle to deal with first. The project had
added environmental sensitivity because of
POWER | September 2013
http://www.powermag.com
POWER September 2013

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