Welcome to

Go new or buy used? It’s a trickier question when talking billion dollar power plants.  As Matt Galka tells us, critics are slamming Duke Energy because they say their choice to build new power stations is a money grab.

Duke Energy is asking customers to foot a $1.9 billion dollar bill to build new natural gas power plants. But there are perfectly good –and already built – plants sitting idle.

Duke can buy up three plants in Florida for about $1 billion dollars, but they say the power stations don’t meet their needs. The utility also stands to make about double their profit from building new plants.  Environmental lawyer David Guest says the policy of spending more to build new is backwards.

“There’s only one thing going on here, Duke is trying to make more money from consumers. It’s just that simple,” said Guest.

The new power plants will produce about the same amount of power as the two nuclear power plants the energy company botched and that customers are still paying for. Some customers pay nearly $25 more a month for buildings that haven’t been constructed and are not producing power.

Representative Michelle Rehwinkle Vasilinda is an alternative energy advocate who says it’s just another move from power companies to squeeze the consumer.

“They’re really trying to hold on to the status quo and what they’ve got and this is how they end up making money. They can charge more for the new plant than they can for buying an old one,” said Rep. Rehwinkel Vasilinda (D-Tallahassee).

Another argument against the Duke proposal: none of this needs to be done right now . Critics say Duke has enough power to delay closing older plants for two years.

Florida’s Public Service Commission will discuss the Duke plans this week.