The Right Angle Men's Club met on
January 15, 2015 to enjoy comradery, a terrific buffet lunch and to listen to
Charlotte Miller from Florida Power and Light. Ms. Miller is FPL’s Manager of
External Affairs for Southwest Florida. Ninety one (91) members including
several guests attended the meeting in Vanderbilt Country Club’s wonderful, new
Vista Room.
The meeting began with the Pledge of Allegiance,
a 50/50 raffle and opening remarks by Paul L’Esperance. Bill Cooper introduced Ms Miller, our guest
speaker who provided an overview of FPL and FPL’s parent company Next Era
Energy. She discussed:
1)
The regulated and un-regulated parts of
the business
2)
FPL’s power generation facilities
3)
Smart grid initiatives from a consumer
perspective
Some of the key points from her
discussion were:
The regulated side of FPL’s business
provides electricity to approximately half of the state of Florida serving 4.7M
customers in 35 counties. FPL is the lowest cost electricity provider in the
state of Florida of all of the 55 utilities covering the state. Most of the
electricity is generated from gas and nuclear energy. FPL has two nuclear power
plants in Florida at Turkey Point and Stewart Island.
Using Smart grid initiatives and FPL’s
Next Generation Energy Centers, FPL has significantly cut the cost to generate
electricity for the customers FPL serves. Solar energy is beginning to grow
with pilot projects underway. The challenges continue to be the amount of space
needed for solar and battery backup. FPL is driving additional use of solar
with a facility in DeSoto County.
Approximately 46M homes in the United
States have smart meters which is about 40% coverage. Using automated, two way
wireless encrypted transmission, FPL can provide additional capabilities to
consumers as compared to the older, electro-mechanical meters. These
capabilities include outage assistance and restoration, monitoring and metering
usage real time and an energy dashboard where customers can watch usage by
hour.
Ms. Miller answered many questions and addressed
concerns from our members.
The meeting was adjourned at
approximately 1:30 with Paul L’Esperance announcing the next meeting date and
speaker.
