Nuclear Regulatory Commission to issue new licenses for Florida Power and Light Turkey Point site

Published on April 09, 2018 by Kevin Randolph


Warning: Undefined variable $post_id in /var/www/dailyenergyinsider.com/wp-content/themes/dei/single.php on line 31

Warning: Undefined variable $post_id in /var/www/dailyenergyinsider.com/wp-content/themes/dei/single.php on line 36
© Shutterstock

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) recently authorized its Office of New Reactors to issue new combined licenses for Florida Power and Light’s (FPL) Turkey Point site near Miami, Florida.

The licenses authorize FPL to build and operate two AP1000 reactors at the site.

FPL submitted the application on June 30, 2009, to build and operate the reactors adjacent to the two existing Turkey Point reactors.

The NRC certified the 1,100-megawatt AP1000 design in 2011. The NRC’s Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards independently reviewed safety aspects of the application, as well as the staff’s final safety evaluation report, and provided the results of its review to the commission in September 2016. The NRC completed its environmental review and issued the final impact statement for the proposed reactors in October 2016. The commission authorized the issuance of the licenses after conducting a hearing on Dec. 12, 2017.

FPL also plans to conduct upgrades on the existing nuclear units that are expected to increase their output by a combined 40 megawatts of capacity as well as file with the NRC to renew the units’ operating licenses, which would allow the units to operate until 2052 and 2053.

The company has also been working with the Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Department to develop a potential system that would enable the company to treat and reuse County wastewater to cool Turkey Point’s natural gas-fueled Unit 5 and help restore water quality in the cooling canals for nuclear-fueled Units 3 and 4.