“You need cheap power with surplus capacity to grow your economy. I had a friend in SC who worked for Duke at one of the nuke plants, and he stated that whatever economic growth you planned, you needed to grow the power grid by an extra 25%. “
If the economy grows 3% per year, in 10 years you need 30% more capacity without considering the government mandates to convert the nation’s fleet of automobiles, trucks, and natural gas heating/stoves to electricity.
So far we have grown using the reserve capacity that the system had. In the 80’s and 90’s Florida exported it’s surplus electricity, now Florida consumes 220.7 Twh, and produces 221.1 Twh. That means no reserve at all in practical terms. God forbid we have a long hot summer, or we’ll end up like California. Electric rates are about to jump up. Duke’s solution is to spend 2 billion on 25 solar production facilities which will use 5 million solar panels to generate .0000015 Twh or 1.5 Mwh when the sun’s shining. What a great engineering solution :< . The plan is supposed to be completed by the end of 2024. I’m sure it will come in on time and under budget.