Florida’s state governor Rick Scott approved Florida Power & Light plans to add two AP1000s to its Turkey Point site in Miami-Dade county.
Florida’s state governor Rick Scott approved Florida Power & Light plans to add two AP1000s to its Turkey Point site in Miami-Dade county.
The site, which also holds two Westinghouse PWRs that were uprated in 2013, also has three fossil power plants: two natural gas/oil conventional steam units (1&2) and a combined-cycle natural gas unit (5).
One of the controversial issues about the plan was the requirement for four new power transmission lines that would need to be installed between the plant and centres of demand in the southern and western suburbs of Miami. The proposal was four three new lines in the west Miami-Dade county, and one in the east.
The project has already received Florida public service commission approval and state environmental approval, according to a Reuters report.
One unusal aspect of Turkey Point 6&7, which sits on Biscayne Bay, is its plan for cooling water. First, condenser cooling would be accomplished with six circulating water coolers. Second, the primary source of cooling water makeup would be reclaimed water from the Miami-Dade County Water and Sewer Department, through a nine-mile long dedicated pipeline from the South District Water Wastewater Treatment Plant. FPL said that it has used reclaimed water at its natural gas-fired combined cycle units at the West County Energy Center in Palm Beach County. Palo Verde nuclear power plant also uses exclusively reclaimed water for cooling (see also An oasis filled with grey water)
FPL said in a ten-year plan published in April 2014 that the next step is for the USNRC to provide a review schedule for the Turkey Point 6&7 combined operating licence application (COLA). It plans for the units to come online in 2022 and 2023.
New COLA reviews are currently on hold until the USNRC resolves the waste confidence issue that was challenged by a US Court of Appeals ruling in 2012. Waste confidence is about the ability of nuclear power plants to store waste safely on site for decades, in the absence of a federal waste repository. A revised generic environmental impact statement and rule is expected to be issued in autumn 2014.
Picture: Maps of the proposed routes for new transmission lines from Turkey Point through Miami suburbs. Source: FPL