Florida Power & Light Co. (FPL) selected Sabal Trail Transmission LLC—a joint venture between Spectra Energy Corp. and NextEra Energy Inc.—and NextEra’s wholly owned subsidiary Florida Southeast Connection LLC (FSC) to build two natural gas pipelines and an interconnection hub. The company’s economic analysis of the proposals for additional natural gas transportation capacity determined that these two projects will save FPL customers almost $600 million compared with other proposals.

Sabal Trail will invest about roughly $3 billion in the construction of a 465-mile interstate natural gas pipeline that will originate in southwestern Alabama and transport natural gas to Georgia and Florida. It will terminate at a new Central Florida Hub south of Orlando, Florida, where it will interconnect with the two, existing natural gas pipelines that currently serve peninsular Florida. The pipeline will be capable of transporting more than 1 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas to serve local distribution companies, industrial users and natural gas-fired power generators in the Southeast.

FSC will invest approximately $550 million to construct a separate pipeline from Sabal Trail's Central Florida Hub to FPL's Martin Clean Energy Center in Indiantown, Florida. The FSC project will initially be capable of transporting 400 million cubic feet per day.

Permitting is underway for both projects, and construction is expected to begin in 2016 in order for operations to commence in 2017.