Tampa Electric is making state-of-the-art improvements to a unit at the Polk Power Station, which will save customers’ fuel costs.
These improvements will make Polk Unit 1 more efficient, which will save fuel costs for customers. It will also make Polk Unit 1 more agile, which will help the fleet respond faster to changing conditions. The company is upgrading the combustion turbine with modernized controls, a modernized combustion system and new exhaust systems. It will be capable of being a dual-fuel unit (primarily natural gas, with diesel oil used as a backup) to improve reliability and to support a balanced fuel mix.
“These changes will allow our equipment to produce more power with less fuel, which helps customers,” said Archie Collins, president and chief executive officer of Tampa Electric. “Investing in fuel-efficient power plants means lower bills for everyone in the long run.”
The $77.5 million project will be completed this summer.
Because of these improvements, the coal portion of Polk Unit 1, which turned coal into synthetic gas, retired at the end of 2024. Polk Unit 1 was built in 1996 as an integrated combined-cycle coal gasification plant, one of only a handful in the United States. It was partially funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.
Also on site is Polk Unit 2, a 1,200 MW natural gas combined-cycle unit, which is not affected by this project. When this work is complete, the Polk Power Station’s two units will be capable of producing more than 1,400 megawatts of electricity, or enough to power 480,000 homes.
Tampa Electric, one of Florida’s largest investor-owned electric utilities, serves about 860,000 customers in West Central Florida. Tampa Electric is a subsidiary of Emera Inc., a geographically diverse energy and services company headquartered in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
