14 May (NucNet): Florida Power & Light (FPL) has been given permission by Florida state for the construction of two new Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear reactor units at the Turkey Point nuclear power station south of Miami.
Governor Rick Scott and the Cabinet, consisting of attorney-general Pam Bondi, agriculture commissioner Adam Putnam and state chief financial officer Jeff Atwater, unanimously certified the two new reactors, Turkey Point-6 and Turkey Point-7, as well as associated infrastructure including around 100 kilometres of transmission lines, FPL said.
Under the Power Plant Siting Act, Florida law allows the governor and cabinet to act as a siting board to issue a licence for power plants larger than 75 megawatts.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will still need to issue a combined operating and construction licence for the new reactors before ground-breaking can take place, FPL said. FPL applied for that licence in 2009.
Depending on the NRC's schedule, FPL said it could have the first of the two new Turkey Point reactors online by 2022.
FPL has said it wants to increase its electrical generation capacity by nearly 33 percent to meet projected growth in electricity demand until 2020. The proposed units would generate enough power to supply the needs of more than one million residential customers.
There are two existing reactors at the site, Turkey Point-3 and Turkey Point-4. Both are Westinghouse pressurised water reactors and began commercial operation in 1972 and 1973 respectively.
In April 2013, FPL completed a five-year, multibillion-dollar investment to upgrade its Turkey Point and St. Lucie nuclear stations, adding more than 500 megawatts of capacity.
