The Department of Energy could soon announce which nuclear power plant operators will receive the first round of payouts in the agency’s multi-billion dollar civil nuclear credits program.
Thursday marked one month since the Sep. 6 application deadline for DOE’s roughly $6 billion bailout scheme. A spokesperson for DOE told RadWaste Monitor via email Thursday that the department “will announce any conditional awards as soon as possible.”
An agency spokesperson told RadWaste Monitor in September that the first set of awards under its roughly $6 billion bailout scheme could go out “as soon as 30 days” after the application period closed.
DOE cautioned in August that the award rollout could be slower based on the number of applications it received.
When the credits go out, the agency has said that it will provide information about which plants are getting a bailout, the amount of credit allocated and the average dollar-per-megawatt-hour credit price.
So far, at least two nuclear plant operators have said that they are seeking a bailout from the feds: Pacific Gas and Electric, which runs California’s Diablo Canyon Power Plant; and Holtec International, which currently owns the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Michigan. Both operators told Exchange Monitor via email Tuesday that they had yet to hear from DOE.
The civil nuclear credits program, made law in November 2021 as part of the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, is aimed at propping up the aging U.S. nuclear fleet. DOE has said that it would award bailouts over a five-year period in around $1.2 billion increments.
The first round of credits was restricted to plant operators who had announced plant closures before September 2021. DOE’s second round of awards, announced Friday, will be open to nuclear plants that are slated to shut down at any point during the remaining four years of the bailout program. The agency has yet to announce a submission deadline.
