Lakeland utility committee reviews capital plan, undergrounding and Unit 5 outage; approves outage contracts

Lakeland City Utility Committee members heard staff explain how annual capital budgets are spent on generation maintenance, delivery hardening and technology modernization, and approved two contracts tied to a planned Unit 5 outage.

General Manager Munson told the committee that all six new engines are commissioned and ‘‘we literally have got, things going down to the wire on these … units,’’ while also warning there remain early maintenance issues on Unit 1 and Unit 5 that staff are addressing. Munson said the city will run the six engines together in a proving period, then shift into a maintenance phase for the young units.

Tory, production lead for capital and production, told the committee the utility’s total capital budget is roughly $46,200,000 and that production and delivery each account for about half of annual capital. ‘‘Our capital budget is fairly pretty flat,’’ Tory said, explaining the utility expects modest year‑to‑year increases and that much spending on production is driven by hours and starts on large units.

The committee heard a technical update about Unit 5: staff said a planned major outage will run Feb. 2–May 4 (a 72‑day outage) to perform required major maintenance on combustion and steam…