Port Everglades Clean Energy Center
Fort Lauderdale, Fla.      
Best Project

Owner Florida Power & Light
Lead Design Firm Zachry Group
General Contractor Zachry Group
Civil/Structural Engineer Zachry Group

Zachry Group provided turnkey engineering, procurement and construction services for the high-efficiency 3-on-1 combined cycle Port Everglades Next Generation Clean Energy Center in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., for Florida Power & Light. The plant is built on the site of an oil-burning, 1960s-era plant that FPL partially demolished in 2013. The new natural gas-fired plant is capable of producing 1,250 megawatts of power. It uses 35% less fuel per megawatt-hour and reduces air emissions by more than 90% percent while cutting carbon dioxide emissions in half. In completing the Port Everglades facility, Zachry Group was able to leverage its recent successes in providing a similar scope of services for two other FPL plants, completed in 2013 and 2014. Workers’ familiarity with the construction and design elements added a significant benefit to the project team.

The contractor’s experience adhering to specified durations for each scheduled activity would prove critical when the owner accelerated the project’s time line. Soon after an initial contract that included an aggressive 28-month construction schedule to build a plant with three combustion turbines and a steam turbine, FPL asked Zachry to accelerate the turnover date by two months. Later, after a hot 2015 summer strained Florida’s power grid, FPL again requested that the contractor accelerate the project. It wanted Zachry to have two of the three combustion turbines online and ready to generate power by June 1, 2015, in order to save the utility from having to purchase power on the open market. The Zachry team worked around the clock and met the new deadline.