NextEra Energy CEO James Robo said the company will not be doing offshore wind projects, calling it “bad energy policy, and it’s bad business,” during an earnings call Monday.
He explains the projects are too expensive, take too long and the uncertainty of online date.
He said, “it is a moonshot in terms of building, in terms of finding people who actually know what they’re doing from a construction standpoint.”
NextEra’s focus for renewable energy projects will be “primarily U.S. going forward.”
In other news, Florida Public Service Commission approved the $888 million Dania Beach power plant proposal by Florida Power & Light Co. (FPL) in March, retiring FPL’s existing Lauderdale plant this year. FPL is a subsidiary of NextEra Energy.
The Dania Beach Clean Energy Center will save FPL customers from $299 million to $364 million, as well as generate additional tax revenues for local governments and new jobs during the plant’s construction.
The 1,163-megawatt natural gas-fired plant is projected to begin service in 2022.
It will be reusing the Lauderdale plant’s infrastructure for the new facility as the most cost-effective way to meet customers’ increasing power needs. The plant will not require any new transmission lines, substation facilities, gas pipelines or water supply.
FPL’s Ten Year Site Plan, which was filed with the Public Service Commission earlier this month, includes plans for more than 3,200 megawatts of additional solar projects across Florida during the coming years, including the approximately 600 megawatts that remain under the SoBRA mechanism of its settlement agreement. It will continue to be one largest ever solar expansions in the United States. FPL has already secured almost 6 gigawatts of potential sites.
