The skyline of Apollo Beach has forever changed, as Tampa Electric has recently completed demolition of two chimneys at Big Bend Power Station.
“Big Bend’s chimneys have been landmarks in Apollo Beach for decades,” said Allan Williams, director of Big Bend Station. “The new view is dramatically different.”
The chimneys were built in the 1970s and served Big Bend Units 1, 2 and 3 for about five decades. The 500-foot-tall chimneys were made of poured reinforced concrete. A specialized team dismantled them in pieces. Demolition of both chimneys took a little more than a year.
After the Big Bend Modernization project was completed, the company began a five-year project to demolish the portions of the plant that are no longer needed. Removing the chimneys was the first and most visible phase of that dismantlement project. Tampa Electric’s goal is to maximize the use of recyclable materials and obsolete equipment to reduce construction costs. Some metal will be recycled or sold as scrap; some equipment, such as pumps and motors, will be sold on the second-hand market.
Big Bend’s Unit 4 remains in operation with natural gas or coal as its fuel, and its chimney will remain in use. In the past two decades, Tampa Electric has reduced its use of coal by more than 90 percent and has cut its carbon footprint in half.
Tampa Electric, one of Florida’s largest investor-owned electric utilities, serves about 840,000 customers in West Central Florida. Tampa Electric is a subsidiary of Emera Inc., a geographically diverse energy and services company headquartered in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
