Legislators look to save nuclear plants
Bills would reward clean energy practices
Pennsylvania lawmakers took the first step toward proposing a rescue of the state’s financially challenged nuclear power plants on Monday, setting the stage for a battle of energy giants in the Legislature this spring.
Six state senators from both parties and Rep. Thomas Mehaffie, a Republican from Dauphin County, circulated memos inviting other members of the House and Senate to sign on to bills they said could forestall early retirements of the state’s nuclear plants by rewarding them for generating electricity without emitting climate-warming gases.
Pennsylvania’s nuclear plants are struggling to compete against a wave of natural gas plants in the electricity market that are taking advantage of cheap, local fuel flowing from the region’s Marcellus Shale wells.
Exelon Generation plans to close its money-losing Three Mile Island nuclear plant near Harrisburg in September.
And though the financial picture for the Beaver Valley nuclear plant in Shippingport looks better — the independent market monitor for the regional grid said the plant had a $165.2 million operating surplus last year — its bankrupt owner, Akron, Ohio-based FirstEnergy Solutions, plans to shut down the two reactors in 2021.
Without action, the legislators said, “The commonwealth’s three other nuclear power plants are likely not far behind.”
The legislators propose to integrate nuclear power into the state’s existing Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards Act, a 2004 law that requires power companies to get an increasing percentage of their electricity from sources like wind, solar, hydropower, landfill methane and waste coal.
Currently, 15.2 percent of the electricity sold in each utility’s service territory must come from portfolio sources, with the level
rising to 18 percent in 2021.
The General Assembly’s bipartisan Nuclear Energy Caucus endorsed the strategy in a report last year, writing that modifying the alternative energy law to include nuclear would have the benefit of using an already familiar construct to “compensate nuclear generation for its environmental attribute” — that it doesn’t emit the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide — and “fairly put nuclear generation on similar footing as other clean energy resources.”
Most of the sponsors of the proposed bills are part of the nuclear caucus. Republican Senators Ryan Aument, John Gordner, Mike Folmer and Elder Vogel Jr. and Democrats John Yudichak and Lisa Boscola are sponsoring the Senate bill.
The legislators included few details about how the law might change in their pitch for support on Monday.
They said Pennsylvania’s nuclear power plants generate 42 percent of the state’s electricity, for example, but did not say what percentage of the state’s electricity mix should come from nuclear power under a revised alternative energy law.
Rep. Mehaffie said that percentage hasn’t been finalized yet but he expects a draft bill to be ready in a few weeks. The bill would create a third tier in the portfolio act — a carbon-free tier — that would be separate from the existing alternative energy sources in the portfolio’s first two tiers, which would remain the same.
He expects the cost to the average residential electric customer to be less than $2 a month.
“This decision that we, the General Assembly, make — or don’t make — is irreversible,” he said.
He said the deadline for state action is June 1. After that, it would be too late for Exelon to prepare to refuel Three Mile Island in the fall.
Any rescue of the state’s nuclear plants is opposed by the natural gas industry, large power consumers and the state’s manufacturers association, who argue it would be unnecessary and uncompetitive.
Citizens Against Nuclear Bailouts — a coalition that includes power generators, natural gas interests and the AARP — said the proposed bill “will essentially re-regulate Pennsylvania’s competitive electricity markets by taking away consumer choice and forcing consumers to buy nuclear energy — no matter the cost.”
The coalition said four of the state’s five nuclear plants are profitable with the exception of Three Mile Island, a single-reactor plant that it said is “inefficient and uncompetitive.”
Three Mile Island “should either be closed or Exelon should use a fraction of its own hundreds of millions of dollars in profits to subsidize the plant instead of turning yet again to consumers for a handout,” the coalition said.
Rep. Mehaffie said the bill is not meant to be a permanent solution. The draft bill will likely include “some time frames” for the support provisions.
The bill’s supporters said it is necessary to maintain the state’s nearly 16,000 fulltime nuclear jobs and provide diverse forms of reliable power to the grid.
“This is an immediate short-term fix for a longterm gain for all of Pennsylvania,” he said.