Fla. regulators OK Duke nuclear rate hike News Observer, : August 5, 2013 By GARY FINEOUT — Associated Press TALLAHASEE, FLA. — Duke Energy’s nearly 2 million customers in Florida will keep paying for the utility giant’s now-shuttered and abandoned nuclear power plants for the next several years.
And on Monday, that cost went up higher. State utility regulators voted to let Duke Energy Florida raise rates 89 cents a month for the average customer to pay for its Crystal River Plant, in Citrus County.
The charge, which would take effect in January 2014, would last up to seven years. It would be in addition to a separate charge customers have been paying to build a nuclear power plant in Levy County in north Florida.
Last week the Charlotte, N.C.-based company announced it was scuttling its plans to build the $24.7 billion plant, citing changes in the energy market and regulatory hurdles at the state and federal level.
The company announced in February that it was closing the Crystal River nuclear plant, located near the Gulf of Mexico. Workers cracked a concrete containment building during an attempt to upgrade the plant in 2009. An attempt to fix the problem in 2011 resulted in more cracks.
State Rep. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, blasted the decision to let Duke — formerly known as Progress Energy — collect even more money for the Crystal River plant.
“Every customer of Duke Progress Energy should be absolutely outraged,” Fasano said…….
Expenses normally cannot be passed on to customers until power plants go into service, but the Legislature made an exception for nuclear reactors in the 2006 law. It was designed to encourage the expansion of nuclear energy. That law was changed this past year…… http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/08/05/3084374/fla-regulators-ok-duke-nuclear.html
