Owner of Three Mile Island planning to close facility in ’19
Seeks help from state to maintain operations
Exelon Corp. said Tuesday was a “difficult day” as it announced plans to close its Three Mile Island nuclear power plant 15 years before its operating license expires unless Pennsylvania enacts subsidies to keep it afloat.
A year ago — nearly to the day — the Chicago-based power company issued a similar statement, bemoaning a “very difficult day” when it announced the early retirement of its Clinton and Quad Cities nuclear power stations in Illinois.
In Illinois, as in New York, the threat worked.
Both states enacted policies to subsidize nuclear power to keep plants from closing before the end of their useful lives. Exelon, which had filed a formal notice with federal nuclear regulators to deactivate the Clinton and Quad Cities plants, withdrew its notice.
By declaring Three Mile Island in Dauphin County on the brink, with retirement now planned for September 2019, Exelon raised the stakes for Pennsylvania’s emerging discussions about ways to save the state’s beleaguered nuclear power plants from a worry to a warning.
The plants are struggling to compete as the low cost of natural gas pushes down prices in the deregulated market. Three Mile Island has been in the most financially precarious position, but other plant operators — including Beaver Valley nuclear power station’s owner FirstEnergy Corp. — have signaled plans to exit the market, by choice or economic pressure, unless the state intervenes.
Exelon’s announcement “confirms what we have suspected for many months — that there are serious and consequential underlying issues in Pennsylvania’s energy sector that must be addressed,” the bipartisan chairs of the Pennsylvania General Assembly’s Nuclear Energy Caucus said Tuesday.
But the legislators — Sens. RyanJohn Reps.anddid directionof findingnot Rob Aument, Yudichak,long-termBecky signal Matzie, beyond strategiesCorbin,a R-Lancaster,preferred economic, D-Luzerne, D-Ambridgea general R-Chester,that policy “promoteenvironmentalgoaland and— swift Talk and of influentiala and bailout consumerhas opposition drawnbenefits.” fromand an the assortmentnatural gasof allies, industryincluding Pennsylvanians, advocates manufacturersfor older and anti-nuclear activists. “A bailout of the nuclear industry may temporarily extend the lifespan of TMI for a few years, but the negative effect of higher energy costs as a result of a bailout would have a major impact on all energy users,” the coalition, called Citizens Against Nuclear Bailouts,said in a statement. The subsidies in Illinois will cost utility ratepayers there up to $235 million per year while the