NextEra Energy Begins Construction of $250 Million Wind Power Project in South Dakota

NextEra Energy Resources remains nation’s No. 1 wind energy owner, according to new AWEA report. Company ended 2009 with more than twice as much wind generation as its closest competitor.

NextEra Energy Resources, the competitive energy subsidiary of FPL Group, Inc., remained the nation’s largest owner of wind farms at the end of 2009, according to the Annual Wind Industry Report released by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA).

NextEra Energy Resources ended 2009 with more than 7,500 megawatts of installed wind power capacity in the United States, according to the AWEA report. That is enough to provide electricity to approximately 1.9 million households. The company’s closest competitor finished the year with 3,225 megawatts of wind capacity.

“We’ve built our wind fleet from fewer than 500 megawatts a decade ago to more than 7,500 megawatts today,” said Lew Hay, chairman and CEO of FPL Group. “Wind energy creates jobs, strengthens our energy security, and makes the air we breathe cleaner. We’ve barely begun to tap the potential of wind energy for the nation, and with the right public policies in place, the wind industry can do a lot more.”

NextEra Energy Resources now has nearly 9,000 wind turbines at 75 wind farms in 17 states and Canada. The company’s wind farms avoided 14 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions in 2009, which is the equivalent of removing approximately 2.4 million cars from the road, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s carbon-equivalency calculator.

In addition to its leading position in wind turbines, NextEra Energy Resources is also the nation’s leading producer of solar energy. The company operates the 310-megawatt Solar Electric Generating Systems in California’s Mojave Desert – collectively the world’s largest solar plant – and recently announced that it has signed a contract to provide 250 megawatts of solar thermal power from its proposed Genesis Solar Energy Project to Pacific Gas and Electric Company.

NextEra Energy Resources is a clean energy leader and one of the largest competitive energy suppliers in North America. A subsidiary of Juno Beach, Fla.-based FPL Group (NYSE: FPL), NextEra Energy Resources is the largest generator in North America of renewable energy from the wind and sun. It operates clean, emissions-free nuclear power generation facilities in New Hampshire, Iowa and Wisconsin as part of the FPL Group nuclear fleet, which is the third largest in the United States. FPL Group had 2009 revenues of more than $15 billion, nearly 43,000 megawatts of generating capacity, and more than 15,000 employees in 28 states and Canada.
 

www.NextEraEnergyResources.com

www.fplgroup.com