Bechtel and Florida Power & Light Win Nuclear Project of the Year Award

Power Engineering magazine has awarded Bechtel and Florida Power & Light Company (FPL) the 2013 Nuclear Project of the Year Award. The companies won for the extended power uprates at the St. Lucie and Turkey Point nuclear plants, located about 160 miles (257 kilometers) apart on Florida’s Atlantic coast. Together, the work at these plants represents one of the largest uprate projects performed in the history of US commercial nuclear plants.

Bechtel provided engineering, procurement, and construction services for the projects, which increased the generation capacity and reliability of two generating units at each location. The company made more than 120 major modifications to the units and worked with FPL to install new high-pressure turbines, low-pressure turbines, generator rotors, moisture separator reheaters, condensers, and start-up transformers.

“The scale and complexity of these projects were tremendous,” said Greg Ashley, president of Bechtel’s nuclear business line. “We performed major construction activities while one unit, and sometimes both, were in operation. This required highly detailed and complex planning to meet tight schedules while maintaining safety and quality. Our ability to work in unison with FPL on all aspects of the project was critical to our collective success.”

Bechtel started work on these projects in 2009, and the last of the four units achieved 100 percent extended power uprate power in June 2013.The extended power uprate work yielded 30 percent more power than originally anticipated, adding more than 522 megawatts of additional capacity. The added capacity is enough to power annually an estimated 332,000 Florida households.

“These projects enabled us to meet the increasing power demands of our customers in a reliable and safe manner and save them billions in fossil fuel costs,” said Terry Jones, vice president of nuclear uprate, Florida Power & Light. “We were able to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by an estimated 33 million tons and improve grid stability by generating electricity where it is needed most.”

Bechtel has served the nuclear power market for more than 60 years. The company is a leader in extended power uprate projects, having completed seven since 2009. In addition to the work on the Florida units, the company also completed extended power uprate work at FPL's Point Beach nuclear facility in Wisconsin two years ago.