Skip to main content

A Little Now, A Lot Later–Florida and Cost Recovery

Michael Waldron, who is director of nuclear communications at Florida Power & Light, takes an unusually pugnacious tone in this op-ed in the Miami Sun-Sentinel. He is defending the concept of cost recovery, a process by which a company can levy a small surcharge on ratepayers to improve or build reactors. In this case, FPL is using this to upgrade their reactors at Turkey Point and do some early work on two more potential reactors there:
Over the past several years, Florida's nuclear cost recovery statute has allowed FPL to upgrade our existing nuclear plants and add over 500 new megawatts of clean, cost-effective power-generation to our fleet.  To put this in perspective, this is about the same amount of electricity generated by a medium-sized nuclear power plant without having to build one.
Waldron says that FPL is saving a lot of money for its customers – for itself, too, of course, but that also benefits customers:
For example, the 400 new megawatts we have already added will save our customers roughly $7.5 million a month on fuel costs going forward.  Over the lifetime of the units, these upgrades are expected to save customers approximately $3.8 billion. These projects would not have been possible without Florida's nuclear cost recovery statute.
Waldron is answering Stephen Smith of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, an anti-nuclear group. Smith’s argument is actually a – little – strange. Aside from just generally not thinking nuclear energy represents a worthwhile investment, Smith links cost recovery to socialism and rapacious capitalism. There’s a ton of risk associated with it and it’ll be a financial bonanza. His argument is actually kind of wacky.
But this law now socializes costs and all the risk of reactor construction by shifting it to customers. Meanwhile it privatizes all the reward to big power company shareholders, such as FPL — even though they shoulder no risk. FPL has recently requested an 11.25 percent return for its shareholders as part of a base rate increase. The FPL project, if ever completed, is estimated to cost upwards of $20 billion. Clearly an 11.25 percent return on $20 billion is a sweet return for FPL shareholders for a risk-free investment.
This might be the part that actually made Waldron put up his dukes, because it’s not exactly what is happening. He explains this:
Under the law, FPL is only reimbursed for amounts that we have already spent IF these expenses are deemed prudent through an independent evaluation by the Florida Public Service Commission.  In practice, this means that during the licensing phase, customers pay only for licensing activities; during construction, FPL must borrow the money and customers pay only for financing charges, not the construction itself; and, it is only after the plant is in operation that customers would pay for the charges incurred during construction.
Waldron doesn’t point out that paying interest charges early reduces the overall cost of the project – as when you double pay on your credit card. Cost recovery can be used for any large capital projects – it works especially when the outcome benefits the commonweal, as it does here.

Florida is always going to be a somewhat prickly environment when it comes to even small surcharges because so many people there live on fixed incomes. I cannot fault that – and maybe it’s a better angle from which to make an argument about cost recovery, especially in Florida. But Waldron’s aggressive response to Smith seems exactly correct – Smith isn’t giving cost recovery its due and Waldron says so.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Wednesday Update

From NEI’s Japan micro-site: NRC, Industry Concur on Many Post-Fukushima Actions Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues • There is a “great deal of alignment” between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry on initial steps to take at America’s nuclear energy facilities in response to the nuclear accident in Japan, Charles Pardee, the chief operating officer of Exelon Generation Co., said at an agency briefing today. The briefing gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss staff recommendations for near-term actions the agency may take at U.S. facilities. PowerPoint slides from the meeting are on the NRC website. • The International Atomic Energy Agency board has approved a plan that calls for inspectors to evaluate reactor safety at nuclear energy facilities every three years. Governments may opt out of having their country’s facilities inspected. Also approved were plans to maintain a rapid response team of experts ready to assist facility operators recoverin...

Activists' Claims Distort Facts about Advanced Reactor Design

Below is from our rapid response team . Yesterday, regional anti-nuclear organizations asked federal nuclear energy regulators to launch an investigation into what it claims are “newly identified flaws” in Westinghouse’s advanced reactor design, the AP1000. During a teleconference releasing a report on the subject, participants urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to suspend license reviews of proposed AP1000 reactors. In its news release, even the groups making these allegations provide conflicting information on its findings. In one instance, the groups cite “dozens of corrosion holes” at reactor vessels and in another says that eight holes have been documented. In all cases, there is another containment mechanism that would provide a barrier to radiation release. Below, we examine why these claims are unwarranted and why the AP1000 design certification process should continue as designated by the NRC. Myth: In the AP1000 reactor design, the gap between the shield bu...

Nuclear Utility Moves Up in Credit Ratings, Bank is "Comfortable with Nuclear Strategy"

Some positive signs that nuclear utilities can continue to receive positive ratings even while they finance new nuclear plants for the first time in decades: Wells Fargo upgrades SCANA to Outperform from Market Perform Wells analyst says, "YTD, SCG shares have underperformed the Regulated Electrics (total return +2% vs. +9%). Shares trade at 11.3X our 10E EPS, a modest discount to the peer group median of 11.8X. We view the valuation as attractive given a comparatively constructive regulatory environment and potential for above-average long-term EPS growth prospects ... Comfortable with Nuclear Strategy. SCG plans to participate in the development of two regulated nuclear units at a cost of $6.3B, raising legitimate concerns regarding financing and construction. We have carefully considered the risks and are comfortable with SCG’s strategy based on a highly constructive political & regulatory environment, manageable financing needs stretched out over 10 years, strong partners...