Why does Tampa Electric need to add baseload generation in early 2013?
Tampa Electric forecasts that the number of retail customer and retail electric sales will continue to grow at about 2.3% and 2.8% per year, respectively. Over the next ten years, Tampa Electric expects to add almost 164,000 additional customers to its current base of 654,000 customers. Tampa Electric’s last baseload generation addition was Polk Unit 1, a 255 megawatt IGCC unit, which entered service in 1996. Since that time, Tampa Electric has repowered the 1,200 megawatt, coal-fired Gannon Station to become the 1,840 megawatt, natural-gas fired, combined-cycle H. L. Culbreath Bayside Station, and added four natural gas-fired combustion turbines (640 megawatts total) that operate primarily during periods of peak loads.
