The Brooksville Journal

FLORIDA POWER DOUBLES PREWAR CAPACITY OF PLANTS

The Florida Power Corporation will start construction of a new 25,000 KW electric generator at their Benson Springs plant on Lake Monroe in Volusia county in the near future.

This addition will complete the work now in progress which doubles the pre-war capacity of their steam-electric plants in Florida.

In announcing this newest addition, A. W. Higgins, president of the utility which serves this territory stated:

"The Florida Power corporation is confident of the future development of Florida and we are now in the midst of a twenty million dollar expansion program which is entirely justified by the demands for electric power which we see in the next few years."

The new 2½ million dollar unit, which will be in service early next year, will be housed in the building shown above which now has a unit only half the capacity of the new one.

In addition to the new unit, the company is now in the process of increasing the capacity of more than 225 miles of transmission lines and several substations.

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Florida
Power
Doubles Capacity
Of Prewar Plants

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transmission lines which will carry the increased power to all parts of the system through these high voltage lines and modern substations, such as the one built recently at Woodsmere in Orange county.

Higgins pointed out that Florida Power, like other privately owned utilities, always keeps well in advance of the needs of the people in arranging for power plant expansion. "We have to be there when the customer throws the switch," the utility head explained. He then pointed to the war record of the company in meeting all the demands of industry and military establishments added to their regular volume of business which has been growing steadily through the years. "The demands of peace are greater than those of war as far as our company is concerned," emphasized the power official for he pointed out that one industrial user, the Victor Chemical Works, which the utility helped secure for Florida, would need capacity in excess of 16,000 kilowatts when it starts operations near Tarpon Springs later this year.

In commenting on the decision of the Victor Chemical Works to locate in Florida, Higgins stressed the fact that the company now operated a huge plant in the TVA territory. "This plant will have one of the largest electric furnace units ever built," said Higgins, "and the fact that they are locating in our territory blows the old myth 'out of the water' about industry going only where subsidized power is available. We of the Florida Power Corporation, are confident that the near future will see other new industries locate in the state and shall continue our best efforts to that purpose.

The Florida Power corporation has six plants in the state. The four steam generating plants are located: St. Petersburg, where a new 25,000 KW turbine was put into service last year, Port Inglis, where work started last year on a 25,000 KW turbine, Avon Park and Benson Springs. In addition they have two small hydro plants located at Dunnellon and Jackson Bluff near Tallahassee.

When this latest addition is completed, the company will have generating capacity in excess of 165,000 kilowatts, which about doubles the capacity they had in 1941. All the plants are interconnected with high voltage transmission lines and the company is also inter-connected with other utilities in Florida and the Southeastern states.