JEA explores sites for natural gas plant facing tougher EPA rules - The Florida Times-Union

JEA explores sites for natural gas plant facing tougher EPA rules

JEA eyes former St. Johns River Power Park site for natural gas-fired electric plant
David Bauerlein

What goes around might come around for JEA on a 1,200 acre tract of land on the Northside.

JEA is eyeing the former St. Johns River Power Park site as a possible location for a new natural gas plant that could cost $800 million to $1 billion and bring electric generation back to the same place where the utility demolished a coal-fired power plant a few years ago.

In another throwback to the St. Johns River Power Park, JEA is exploring whether it might team up with a utility to construct a bigger natural gas plant serving the needs of two utilities. JEA joined Florida Power & Light when they built the coal-fired St. Johns River Power Park in the 1980s with enough capacity to power customers for each.

"We're looking at both options, quite frankly," JEA board Chairman Joe DiSalvo said of the the Northside site and joining forces with another utility to build a bigger plant.

The construction of a new plant will face tougher and costlier federal regulations aimed at sharply reducing how much carbon dioxide comes from power plants nationwide.

Northeast Florida environmental organizations also have been pressing JEA to put the brakes on building any more generating stations using fossil fuels that send carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Building an even bigger natural gas plant in tandem with another utility would be doubling down on the wrong strategy, said Logan Cross, chairman of the Northeast Florida chapter of the Sierra Club.

"We want to see JEA making a trend toward getting off fossil fuel dependence, and if they make a big investment in this plant, that's pretty much sending a message they have no qualms about staying fossil-fuel dependent for decades," Cross said.

Mayor Deegan has called climate change 'issue of our time'

Cross said before JEA heads down that road of building the natural gas plant, the city-owned utility should make sure its plan is in sync with Mayor Donna Deegan's stance that dealing with climate change is the "issue of our time."

"It's kind of like she's saying one thing and JEA is doing another, and there seems to be a disconnect there," Cross said.

Deegan has not taken a position on JEA building a new natural gas plant. But she has said Jacksonville should view the "green economy" as an "opportunity instead of some sort of gloom and doom scenario."

"I think we are really poised to be a climate leader in a city that frankly five or 10 years ago didn't even want to talk about that issue," she said during an appearance in March at the Aspen Institute's Future Leaders Climate Summit in Miami.

JEA has been behind other utilities in moving away from fossil fuels, but last year, the board decided that 35% of its electricity will come from "clean energy" by 2030. JEA will seek to hit that carbon-free target by using electricity from the Plant Vogtle nuclear plant in Georgia and expanding its use of solar power.

JEA moves forward on solar farms with FPL sister company

JEA expects that by 2027, it will get 19% of its electricity from clean energy: 10% from nuclear power and 9% from renewable sources, mainly solar power. The solar power includes three new solar farms that Florida Renewable Partners, a sister company of Florida Power & Light, will build on JEA-owned land. JEA will lease the land for Florida Renewable Partners and purchase electricity from the solar farms. When those are operating by the end of 2026, they will account for 3% of the electricity used by JEA customers.

JEA interim CEO Vickie Cavey said the recently finalized agreements with Florida Renewable Partners "are an investment in sustainability and reduced emissions for our community for generations to come."

"This is a crucial step in helping us meet our clean energy goals," she said.

The step isn't as big as what the JEA board approved in November. The board authorized JEA entering into contracts with Florida Renewable Partners for four solar farm sites totaling 280 megawatts of capacity. The finalized agreement is for three farms with 200 megawatts of capacity.

The board had approved spending up to $1.46 billion over 35 yeas for the four solar farms, a figure that included $645 million to install battery systems. The finalized agreement is for up to $626 million for the three solar sites and up to $388 million for batteries, totaling about $1 billion.

JEA will decide in the future whether to add the batteries, which would enable the storage of electricity that JEA could use when the sun isn't shining.

EPA rules will require costly features for new natural gas plants

Along with expanding solar power, JEA's long-range plan calls for closing Northside Generating Station's unit 3, which burns natural gas, in 2029 and building a 571 megawatt combined-cycle natural gas plant. The new plant would use natural gas more efficiently than unit 3 does, according to the Integrated Resource Plan.

Natural gas has become JEA's fuel of choice. The closure of the coal-fired 1,252 megawatt St. Johns River Power Park in 2018 was part of JEA's move away from coal, mirroring a national trend that shrunk the number of coal-fired plants.

Natural gas creates less pollution and carbon dioxide emissions than coal does. But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is cracking down on the use of both natural gas and coal by power plants.

DiSalvo said JEA is assessing the EPA rules issued April 25 that, among other requirements, says all utilities must control 90% of their carbon pollution from existing coal-fired plants and from new natural gas-fired plants. The regulation for coal-fired plants applies to those plants that utilities plan to run in the long-term, according to EPA.

DiSalvo said it's "going to be very challenging getting to that 90% carbon capture."

"So we've got to get our arms around that and again, it all comes down to what is technologically feasible right now," he said. "We want to get there but there's a lot of other factors: cost, customer services, rates. All that's got to be tied in."

Federal rule would phase out virtually all coal plants by 2045

JEA's plan to retire Northside Generating Station's unit 3 in the coming years still would leave Northside Generating Station's units 1 and 2, which burn coal and petroleum coke, producing electricity. But complying with the carbon-capture rules for coal-fired plants would require big-ticket investment in those units for them.

The EPA anticipates that as a result of its new requirements, less than 1% of electric generation would come from coal by 2045, according to an according to an impact analysis report accompanying the announcement.

"These rules, if passed as written, would represent some really striking changes to the way we generate electricity," Cavey told the board at its most recent meeting. "While we want to maintain what we have, we want to also acknowledge and help with climate change."

Clean energy target: JEA stakes out plan in a water-borne region at risk from global warming

Florida is among 27 states that have petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington. D.C. to stop the the EPA from carrying out the rule.

President Joe Biden's administration has called the rule essential for combatting global warming by investing in technologies that create economic growth and stop global warming from causing disruptions for future generations.

"This is how we win the future," said Ali Zaidi, national climate advisor for Biden, when EPA rolled out the rule.

JEA considers commerce park for Northside property

JEA plans to use a solicitation to gauge interest from other utilities about participating in construction of the natural gas plant.

On a parallel track, JEA also has been looking at ways to use the cleared land at the former St. Johns River Power Park as way to drive economic development on the Northside for such uses as distribution centers, warehouses and even a rocket recovery center. JEA leaders have called it a "once in a generation opportunity" because the site is near the Blount Island port terminal and Interstate 295. It has a rail line running through it.

JEA's conceptual plan for the site has used the name Gateway Commerce Center and envisioned building a new entry road from Heckscher Drive, providing a closer link to the Blount Island terminal. The utility is working with England-Thims & Miller for engineering services and CBRE for real estate development.

The JEA board declared the the site as surplus property in November. The land area is big enough to still allow such development if a natural gas plant were built there, according to JEA.