Florida Utility Buys Wisconsin Nukes

Florida Power and Light is taking over the country.

From Miami.com:

FPL Group, owner of Florida's biggest utility, agreed to buy the Point Beach nuclear power plant in Wisconsin from Wisconsin Energy Corp. for about $998 million to almost double its generating capacity in the Midwest.

Wisconsin Energy will buy all of the output from the plant, located about 30 miles southeast of Green Bay, through at least 2030 under a long-term agreement, Juno Beach-based FPL said today in a statement. The plant's two reactors can generate 1,033 megawatts, enough to supply about 826,000 average U.S. homes.

In a separate statement, Wisconsin Energy said the per- kilowatt cost of buying power from FPL will be lower than if its Wisconsin Electric Power Co. utility continued to own and operate the plant, its only nuclear station.

FPL has been expanding its wholesale power generation business outside Florida, buying nuclear plants and building wind-powered generators. FPL has 660 megawatts of generating capacity from wind turbines in Wisconsin and five other Midwest states and it bought a majority stake in Iowa's Duane Arnold nuclear plant last year.

So, the folks in Wisconsin have to get hired guns from Florida to run their plants. Of course, when it comes to heavily-regulated industries, it's all about the bean counting.