TECO Energy


TECO Energy Inc. is an energy-related holding company based in Tampa, Florida, and a subsidiary of Emera Incorporated. TECO Energy has several subsidiaries: Tampa Electric Company, which provides electricity to the Tampa Bay Area and parts of Central Florida; Peoples Gas Company, which provides natural gas throughout Florida; and TECO Services, which provides IT, HR, legal, facilities, and other services to current and former TECO subsidiaries.

History

Tampa Electric began in 1899 to manage electric trolley systems in the city of Tampa. On September 4, 2015, Emera, a utility holding company based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, announced the pending acquisition of TECO Energy. That purchase closed on July 1, 2016, and TECO Energy, Inc. is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Emera, Inc.

Environmental record

In 2000, TECO Energy was fined $3.5 million for making changes to emissions producing facilities without installing new updated pollution controls. This led to the switch from coal to natural gas in one of its plants by 2004 and optimization of pollution controls in another. These changes were enacted to drastically cut emissions, notably sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions.
TECO Energy completed a $330 million emissions control project in 2010, which its Big Bend Power Station one of the cleanest coal-fired power plants in the nation. The renovation reduced nitrogen oxide emissions at the plant by approximately 91 percent from levels recorded in 1998.
Since 1998, TECO has invested $1.2 billion in improvements to the company's systems, including the re-powering of the previously coal-fired Bayside Power Station to natural gas and the addition of pollution controls on a second, reducing
sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions by more than 91 percent and carbon dioxide levels by 20 percent from 1998 levels.
On September 28, 2017, TECO announced it was adding 600 MW of solar to its electricity-producing portfolio.