Over the last five years the Florida Public Service Commission(FPSC) and the staff of the Tallahassee Electric Utility have documented problems associated with the transmission lines that connect Tallahassee to the Florida electric grid.
Fact 1: At a City Commission Target Issue Workshop in May 2004, electric utility staff pointed out that “regional load growth is outpacing transmission system improvement expansion.” And at a City Commission meeting on September 27, 2006 utility staff discussed the “need for costly improvments to the transmission system owned by other companies.”
Fact 2: A 2007 report by the FPSC revealed that
continuing growth in north Florida, combined with a lack of generating units and transmission facilities east of Tallahassee, has resulted in increasing power flows across Tallahassee’s system.The power flows from Southern Company resources in Georgia, across Tallahassee’s service area, to Progress Energy Florida and Seminole to the south and east. The inadvertent power flows have caused local system imbalances that, in turn, adversly affect Tallahassee’s ability to serve its own load in an economic manner.”
Fact 3: The Florida Public Service Commission has broad-based authority over adequacy and reliability of Florida’s electric system pursuant to Chapter 366, Florida Statutes. The Commission has jurisdiction over the planning, development, and maintenance of a coordinated electric power grid throughout Florida to assure an adequate and reliable source of energy for operational and emergency purposes in Florida.
Fact 4: Tallahassee Reports requested all written correspondence over the last three years from City Commissioners and the City Manager to the Florida Legislature, the Governor, and the Florida Public Service Commission addressing the transmission issue.
After about seven days of research, the City informed Tallahassee Reports that no such documents exsist.
Tallahassee Reports is in the process of trying to determine why there has been no substantive communication between these important decision makers.
City Commission and City Manager Silent on Tallahassee Transmission Line Problems added by Staff on
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Because they are not regulated by the PSC…
They need to be when they are x-fering profits from utilities to pay other city bills… they need to be when they charge customers outside the city limits a surcharge… they need to be when they recently completed the transmission line along Dempsey Mayo and now are requesting $700,000 from the stimulus funding to increase capacity as it is already outdated…
Our Utilities desperately needs oversight from the PSC!