Orlando’s landmark power plants will cease burning coal by 2027 and switch to natural gas as an early step in a sweeping plan by the city’s utility for a surge in solar energy and cuts in carbon emissions of 50 percent by 2030 and entirely by 2050.
“I think we have a very good balanced approached,” said Orlando Utilities Commission’s general manager, Clint Bullock. “We are municipal utility and we trying to keep in mind the needs of our community.”
OUC has taken nearly two years and a $1 million study to respond in detail to a call by Orlando’s mayor and council for the city to have converted to 100 percent “clean, renewable energy” by the 2050.
“I’m impressed with the amount of forward thinking that went into it,” said Mayor Buddy Dyer. He said that among the strongest elements are the interim goals, ramping up to 100 percent in 2050, rather than holding off for a big push in the final years.
He noted that it’s difficult to predict the impact to electric rates. But with solar and batteries, “as technology evolves, it becomes cheaper and cheaper,” Dyer said.
The utility will consider embracing some nuclear power, depending on the industry’s development of technology for small, modular units. A small portion of fossil-fuel energy, about 7 percent, will continue into 2050 to maintain reliability but would be offset by carbon-reduction measures. The vast majority of power is to flow from solar plants, the utility said.
“This is directionally aligned with the aspirational proclamation of achieving 100 percent renewable energy for Orlando by 2050,” Bullock said.
Asked about the impact to OUC’s electric rates, Bullock said that matter would be covered in a public workshop Nov. 17. Sign-up and other details are OUCRoadmap.com
The utility’s plan is in line with the nation’s steady retirement of coal-burning power plants, in large part because of the low costs of natural gas, and the rise of solar, wind and other renewable energy. A key driver is accelerating climate change, with a progression of record-high temperatures globally.
“This is a long time in coming,” said Susannah Randolph, senior Florida campaign representative for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign. “It’s pretty momentous that they are ending coal usage. That’s a big step forward.”
Randolph said group will encourage OUC to end all use of fossil fuel as soon as possible because of the climate crisis.
OUC executives said Wednesday that the use of coal by its two Stanton Energy Center plants in east Orange County, workhorses for decades able to produce a combined 900 megawatts, will be cut significantly by 2025.
Converted to natural gas, the two units will not be as efficient as modern natural-gas plants, but the conversion will cost a small fraction of a building a new plant, officials said. Both units, constructed in the 1980s and 1990s and distinctive for their chimneys and cooling towers, would be permanently shuttered in 2040.
“Although this is a great step forward we are still committed to an Orlando completely free of fossil fuels,” said Beverlye Colson Neal, NAACP Orange County branch president, “meaning no investment on toxic gas, and a strong commitment to increased investments in energy efficiency in our black and brown communities.”
Meanwhile, the public utility is in early talks for another large solar plant, with a capacity of 150 megawatts, and is ramping up its capacity to store energy produced by solar plants with the use of advanced batteries and via hydrogen technology. So far, OUC has committed to 270 megawatts of solar energy.
While the two coal plants will be overhauled to run on natural gas, and OUC now owns a pair of plants that run on natural gas, the utility does not expect to again build another plant that runs on fossil fuel.
Jan Aspuru, OUC’s chief operating officer, said the energy plan was crafted based on balancing four needs: affordability, reliability, resiliency and sustainability.
“Those attributes tend to compete with each other,” said Aspuru. “So finding a balance is often not an easy task.”
Aspuru and other OUC executives historically have stressed the need for energy diversity in case of disruptions to fuel supplies.
On Tuesday, Aspuru provided to OUC’s board a tick tock of events leading to a pair of blackout episodes this summer in California, which has succeeded in significant growth in renewable energy.
The state now has a relatively thin margin of energy from natural-gas power plants and Aspuru said one of the key challenges in moving forward with renewable energy is to ensure that OUC’s system has enough flexibility to respond to energy disruptions.
The utility’s $1 million study dove extensively into technical and industrial considerations for OUC, and also devoted significant attention to community engagement.
Linda Ferrone, chief customer officer at OUC, said a community advisory council ranked the four attributes used in developing an energy plan, with input from surveys and community meetings.
“They ranked reliability the highest at 35 percent, they ranked affordability second at 24 percent, sustainability very close at 22 percent, and then resiliency last at 19 percent,” Ferrone said.
kspear@orlandosentinel.com
