FPL agrees to $25M penalty for blackout
MIAMI (AP) – The Florida Power & Light Company must pay a $25 million penalty for a massive outage that left hundreds of thousands of customers without power last year, according to an agreement announced Thursday.
Under the agreement with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, FPL must pay $10 million to the U.S. Treasury and $10 million to NERC.
“Overall, we deeply regret the inconvenience this incident caused our customers,” FPL spokesman Mayco Villafana said. “We have said that from the beginning, however, we disagree with the assertions with FERC’s Office of Enforcement. We believe the evidence and the findings of independent investigations demonstrate that FPL was in compliance with industry standards.”
Additionally, $5 million was reserved for “enhancements to FPL’s reliability compliance program, equipment maintenance program, and emergency operating procedures,” according to a news release. Villafana said the money would go toward improvements to transmission lines that deliver power from plants to substations.