FPL to Buy Wisconsin Nuclear Plant

Light & Medium Truck, Feb 2007

FPL Group Inc., owner of Florida's biggest utility, agreed to buy the Point Beach nuclear plant in Wisconsin from Wisconsin Energy Corp. for about $998 million to almost double its generating capacity in the Midwest.

Wisconsin Energy will buy all of the output from the power plant, located about 30 miles southeast of Green Bay, through at least 2030 under a long-term agreement, Florida-based FPL said in a statement. The plant's two reactors can generate 1,033 megawatts, enough to supply about 826,000 average U.S. homes.

In a separate statement, Wisconsin Energy said the perkilowatt cost of buying electricity from FPL will be lower than if its Wisconsin Electric Power Co. utility continued to own and operate the plant, its only nuclear station.

FPL has been expanding its wholesale power generation business outside Florida, buying nuclear plants and building windpowered generators. FPL has 660 megawatts of generating capacity from wind turbines in Wisconsin and five other Midwest states and it bought a majority stake in Iowa's Duane Arnold nuclear plant last year.

"I expect these guys to keep doing this," said James Halloran, who manages $34 billion at National City Private Client Group in Cleveland, including 543,000 shares of FPL. The more nuclear plants a company owns, "even if they're in disparate parts of the country, you have an ability to operate better."

With the completion of the transaction, expected in August, FPL will own eight nuclear reactors, the third-largest group behind Chicago-based Exelon Corp. and New Orleans-based Entergy Corp. - Bloomberg News