The company also plans to replace — by the summer of 2022 — a Dania Beach plant that was built in the 1920s with a natural-gas plant the company projects will save customers “hundreds of millions of dollars over its operational life.”
The changes, along with the planned retirement of the 1,252-megawatt coal-fired St. Johns River Power Park by the end of the year, are expected to make solar the company’s third largest source of energy, surpassing coal and oil, but still well behind natural gas and nuclear, by the third quarter of 2020.
The company anticipates solar will account for about 4 percent of its energy in 2023.
“Our strategy of making smart, long-term investments in clean energy infrastructure is working, and we’re looking forward to keeping the momentum going with the major advancements announced today — which, combined, are expected to save customers more than half a billion dollars,” FPL president and CEO Eric Silagy said in a prepared statement.
In February, FPL outlined plans to build eight 74.5 megawatt solar plants by early 2018, an increase from four that had been previously announced.
