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Hurricane Dorian takes aim at 10.5 million electricity customers in Florida

Hurricane Dorian was predicted to make landfall as a major hurricane in Florida during the morning of Sept. 3, potentially bringing a life-threatening storm surge with it. According to the National Hurricane Center, the state is almost entirely within the storm's path, potentially putting more than 10 million electricity customers at risk. As of Aug. 29, Gov. Ron DeSantis had placed all 67 counties in Florida under a state of emergency.

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Investor-owned utilities serve nearly 8 million customers in the state, according 2017 data reported on the U.S. Energy Information Administration's 861 filing.

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NextEra Energy Inc. subsidiary Florida Power & Light Co., or FPL, reported the highest customer count, at 4.9 million, followed by Duke Energy Corp. subsidiary Duke Energy Florida LLC with 1.8 million. Municipal-owned utilities also serve Florida. The largest of these are JEA, owned by the city of Jacksonville, with about 464,000 customers in 2017, and the Orlando Utilities Commission, with roughly 237,000 customers in the same year. On Aug. 30, both companies had updated their websites to inform customers that they were tracking the storm and to offer information on storm preparedness and outage reporting.

The pending storm also returns the spotlight to a new law that directs investor-owned utilities in Florida to submit long-term plans on hardening grid infrastructure to state regulators. DeSantis on June 27 signed Senate Bill 796, which requires utilities to submit a 10-year transmission and distribution storm protection plan to the Florida Public Service Commission. Utilities will have to explain what they will do to protect the grid from extreme weather events like hurricanes and ensure reliability. In return, the utilities would be able to recover costs from related activities like placing power lines underground through a separate clause instead of in base rates once the PSC approves their plans.

"We've been hit so hard in the past couple of years and we're going to continue to get hit," Republican state Sen. Joe Gruters, who sponsored the bill, said in a March interview. "I think people are committed to doing the right thing for Florida and making sure that we become a leader in the nation when it comes to resiliency and reliability for power grids."

In July, the PSC approved an agreement recognizing $1.38 billion in restoration costs for FPL related to Hurricane Irma, which hit in September 2017 and knocked out service to more than two-thirds of FPL's customers.

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Florida is also home to two nuclear plants, the 2,013-MW St. Lucie facility in St. Lucie County, and the 1,652-MW Turkey Point Nuclear plant in Miami-Dade County, both operated by FPL. Both facilities may need to undergo a litany of safety measures if the storm hits as expected, including resident inspectors of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or NRC, checking the facilities' preparations and updating the commission as the storm passes. Nuclear plant operators may shut a plant down based on expected wind speeds. If this happens, the facility will only be restarted after the NRC is satisfied that no safety equipment is damaged and emergency response resources have been restored.