FPL's St Lucie Florida reactor climbs to 30 pct power

NEW YORK, Aug 26 (Reuters) - FPL Group Inc's (FPL.N) 839-megawatt Saint Lucie 1 nuclear unit in Florida, which shut last week due to heavy rain from Tropical Storm Fay, continued to ramp up power early Tuesday, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in its power reactor status report.

The unit, on Hutchinson Island, about 120 miles north of Miami, was operating at 30 percent of capacity early Tuesday, up from just 1 percent on Monday.

The unit was manually shut early last week after more than 17 inches of rain from Fay fell in the area and collected in a sump pit, affecting water quality equipment, a spokeswoman said previously.

The adjacent 839-MW Unit 2 was not shut due to the storm and continued to operate at full power on Tuesday, the NRC report said.

One MW powers about 300 homes in Florida.

FPL's Florida Power & Light Co (FP&L) subsidiary, which owns all of Unit 1, operates the station for its owners.

FP&L (85.1 percent), Florida Municipal Power Agency (8.8 percent) and Orlando Utilities Commission (6.1 percent) own Unit 2.

FPL, of Juno Beach, Florida, owns and operates about 38,000 MW of generating capacity across the United States, markets energy commodities, and transmits and distributes electricity to more than 4.5 million customers in Florida. (Reporting by Joe Silha, editing by John Picinich)