JUNO BEACH, Fla., Dec. 11, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Florida Power
& Light Company (FPL) today announced that a 10-person team of
restoration experts traveled to Puerto
Rico this past weekend to support ongoing restoration
efforts across the Commonwealth. FPL's team joined a contingent of
seven Incident Management Teams (IMTs), each comprised of
professionals representing electric companies from across the U.S.
The teams were deployed in response to a formal request for mutual
assistance by the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) and
supported by Puerto Rico Governor
Ricardo Rosselló.
"We're pleased that the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and PREPA have accepted this
additional help to return normalcy to our fellow American citizens
of Puerto Rico who have been
without electricity for so long," said Eric
Silagy, president and CEO of FPL. "We recognize just
how difficult it is to be without power after a major
hurricane. That's why even before we had completed restoring
power to our more than 4.4 affected million customers in the wake
of Hurricane Irma, we quickly identified a team of restoration
professionals who were prepared to deploy to Puerto Rico to offer whatever help we could
provide. With so many of our own customers and employees
having strong ties to Puerto Rico,
we feel it is our responsibility to help get the lights back on for
the hundreds of thousands who are still in the dark. We're eager to
have these teams in the field and look forward to making a
difference."
Nearly all of the island's 3.5 million residents lost power due
to Hurricane Maria in late September, with the majority remaining
without electricity throughout the island. The teams have been
assigned to seven regions across the island in coordination with
PREPA, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), the Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and electric company contractors
who already are restoring power. FPL's team will support power
restoration in the region of Bayamon, just west of San Juan.
FPL's support of power restoration in Puerto Rico began immediately after the energy
company completed its own restoration in the aftermath of Hurricane
Irma. Additionally, in the days immediately following Hurricane
Maria, NextEra Energy, FPL's parent company, donated $100,000 dollars and matched the same amount from
employee donations to help those affected by the storm. Many
employees also held fundraisers and supply drives to assist those
impacted across the island.
Operationally, FPL coordinated the delivery of thousands of
poles and other equipment to Puerto
Rico and accompanied Florida Governor Rick Scott to the Commonwealth in November.
Since that time, FPL leadership has remained in Puerto Rico where it has been providing
technical expertise and guidance to support the restoration effort.
Gov. Scott has made the support of Puerto
Rico's citizens a top priority in the wake of Hurricane
Maria, communicating regularly with Governor Rosselló, traveling to
the island to offer the state's assistance, and regularly meeting
with and being briefed by FPL.
"Aside from the fact that so many of our customers have family
and other connections to Puerto
Rico, so too is the case with the FPL family," said
Manny Miranda, senior vice president
of Power Delivery for FPL. "The FPL team, alongside other
industry colleagues, is ready to get about the work of helping to
get the lights back on across the island. We have assembled a
group that represents some of the most experienced power
restoration professionals in our industry. Just as we did
during Hurricanes Matthew and Irma, we will lend our knowledge and
expertise to help get the lights back on safely and as quickly as
possible."
FPL team members will remain on the island to support the
restoration as long as their assistance is needed. It is
anticipated that additional FPL field crews and equipment, upon
request, will travel to Puerto
Rico in the weeks ahead to assist with the ongoing
restoration effort.
Mutual assistance throughout the energy industry plays a
critical role in the restoration of power following severe weather
events, such as hurricanes, ice storms and tornadoes. In September,
crews from 30 states and Canada
came to Florida to support the unprecedented restoration of more
than 4.4 million FPL customers following Hurricane Irma. In fact,
those workers, coupled with FPL's more than $3 billion worth of investments over the past
decade to build a stronger and smarter energy grid, helped shave
days off the restoration.
In turn, FPL crews have traveled across the nation to help
restore power following major weather events many times in the
past, including the deployment of approximately 1,000 FPL personnel
to the Northeast in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy in
2012. And just recently, more than 300 men and women deployed
to Maine and Connecticut to assist with restoration
activity following an October Nor'easter.
Florida Power & Light
Company
Florida Power &
Light Company is the third-largest electric utility in the United States, serving nearly 5 million
customer accounts or an estimated 10 million people across nearly
half of the state of Florida. FPL's typical 1,000-kWh residential
customer bill is approximately 25 percent lower than the latest
national average and, in 2016, was the lowest in Florida among reporting utilities for the
seventh year in a row. FPL's service reliability is better than
99.98 percent, and its highly fuel-efficient power plant fleet is
one of the cleanest among all utilities nationwide. The company
received the top ranking in the southern U.S. among large electric
providers, according to the J.D. Power 2016 Electric Utility
Residential Customer Satisfaction StudySM, and was
recognized in 2017 as one of the most trusted U.S. electric
utilities by Market Strategies International. A leading Florida
employer with approximately 8,900 employees, FPL is a subsidiary of
Juno Beach, Florida-based NextEra
Energy, Inc. (NYSE: NEE), a clean energy company widely recognized
for its efforts in sustainability, ethics and diversity, and has
been ranked No. 1 in the electric and gas utilities industry in
Fortune's 2017 list of "World's Most Admired Companies." NextEra
Energy is also the parent company of NextEra Energy Resources, LLC,
which, together with its affiliated entities, is the world's
largest generator of renewable energy from the wind and sun. For
more information about NextEra Energy companies, visit these
websites: www.NextEraEnergy.com, www.FPL.com,
www.NextEraEnergyResources.com.
SOURCE Florida Power & Light
Company