Dive Brief:
- The U.S. Department of Energy on Thursday ordered the Orlando Utilities Commission, a municipal utility, to continue running its 465-MW, coal-fired Stanton Unit 1 instead of placing it in “cold shutdown” to address what the department deems to be an energy emergency in Florida.
- As evidence of the emergency, DOE said the North American Electric Reliability Corp.’s most recent long-term reliability report deemed Florida to be at “normal risk” for long-term energy adequacy. However, the report highlights that projections for resource and transmission growth in Florida lag what is needed to support new data centers and other large loads, DOE said in its 90-day emergency order.
- OUC plans to fully comply with the order and will delay placing its Stanton Unit 1 in cold shutdown, Mike Codichini, a utility spokesman, said in an email. The utility didn’t respond to questions about how much it estimated it would cost to comply with the order or the status of coal stockpiles for the unit.
Dive Insight:
The DOE order is the latest in a string of similar 90-day orders affecting six other power plants, including five coal-fired generators. The order was issued on the same day the Trump administration said it planned to spend $850 million to support coal-fired power plants and the coal sector.
So far, the DOE has reissued the 90-day orders before previous ones expire. They are issued under the Federal Power Act’s section 202(c). The DOE has argued in court that the emergencies the orders are designed to address don’t need to be imminent.
In its order on the Stanton unit, the DOE said that the OUC’s resource adequacy concerns were seen during Winter Storm Fern when exceptionally cold weather covered large sections of the U.S. Orlando’s utility asked for and received two section 202(c) emergency orders to preserve reliability during the winter storm, the department said.
“The conditions resulting from the combination of increasing demand and [electricity] shortage will continue on in the near term and are also likely to continue in subsequent years,” DOE Secretary Chris Wright said in the latest order. “This could lead to the loss of power to homes and local businesses in the areas affected by curtailments or power outages, presenting a risk to public health, and safety.”
The order runs through Sept. 1. DOE directed OUC to file with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission any tariff revisions that are needed so it can recover the costs of the 202(c) order.
In Orlando, the OUC had been preparing to convert the Stanton power plant’s two coal-fired units to burn gas since 2020. As part of that effort, the municipal utility in 2021 bought the roughly 475-MW Osceola peaking power plant, which is more nimble than Stanton’s Unit 1, according to an annual site plan filed with the Florida Public Service Commission in April.
Owning the peaking power plant allows OUC to place Stanton Unit 1 into cold storage instead of converting it to gas, as originally planned, according to the filing.
“OUC’s current generating resources (including existing and planned power purchase agreements) and OUC’s current base-case load forecast indicate that OUC is projected to have adequate capacity to satisfy forecast reserve margin requirements through 2035,” the utility told the PSC.
The utility plans to convert the 465-MW Stanton Unit 2 to gas by the end of 2027, according to the filing.
The OUC’s resource plans are based on its goal to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, with interim targets of 50% carbon emissions reductions by 2030 and 75% carbon emissions reductions by 2040, compared to 2005 levels.
Stanton Unit 1 produced 296,856 MWh in the first quarter this year, down 32% from 436,796 MWh in the same period last year, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
OUC has about 288,000 electric and water customers. The utility also supplies wholesale power to nearby cities.
