U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff supports the issuing of a combined operating license for two proposed reactors at Florida Power & Light Co.'s Turkey Point nuclear power plant near Homestead, Fla.
At the Dec. 12 mandatory and final hearing on the COL application for Turkey Point units 6 and 7, NRC staff and the commission's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board independently concluded that safety evaluations support FPL's application to build and operate two new 1,100-MW reactors 40 miles outside Miami. The NRC commissioners expect to promptly issue a final decision on the application, which NRC staff and contractors took about 120,000 hours to review, totaling about 57 man-years of work.
NextEra Energy Inc. subsidiary FPL submitted the COL application in 2009 for the two additional units, and in 2011 the NRC certified the expansion project's AP1000 reactor design. NRC staff and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a favorable final environmental impact statement in November 2016.
William Maher, senior licensing director for FPL, said the units would help meet an identified need in the future for additional baseload generation in Florida but said "significant, strategic considerations" will ultimately determine whether to move forward with the project.
"The company will make a final decision on new nuclear generation in Florida in the future based on ... energy needs, project costs, carbon regulation, natural gas prices, existing or future legislative provisions for cost recovery, and requirements of the NRC's combined operating license," said Maher. The new units would also need approval from the Florida Public Service Commission before preconstruction activities or on-site preparations can even begin.
In state regulatory hearings in August, FPL estimated that the two new reactors could cost as much as $21.87 billion, with units 6 and 7 coming online possibly in 2031 and 2032, respectively. The NextEra utility has spent $47 million so far in pursuit of COL and related permits and sought to postpone recouping these costs until 2018. But FPL's failure to file a feasibility study on the project since 2015 led to the PSC in October rejecting the request to defer cost recovery for Turkey Point's expansion, but they also refused to rule on whether FPL should continue pursuing the combined operating license.
In FPL's closing statement, Maher said the application benefited from the lessons of previous applications and the ongoing construction activities of two AP1000 reactors at the Alvin W. Vogtle Nuclear Plant in Georgia. "We believe that our experience will also benefit subsequent applicants," said Maher.
Maher said the benefits of a certified, standard design will not be fully realized until the completion of the first-of-a-kind construction, currently underway in Georgia but behind schedule and over budget following the bankruptcy of its former contracted builder, Westinghouse Electric Co. LLC.
"Work to address the emergent industry issues and AP1000-specific issues has not reduced our confidence in the safety of the AP1000 design and the significant value of passive safety systems," said Maher.
