The Department of Energy this week formalized its decision to award Pacific Gas and Electric Co. some $1 billion in financial aid over four years to keep the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant running.
DOE on Monday published its record of decision in the Federal Register, making official the award the agency announced in 2022, when the federal government and California put together a combined financial aid package of more than $2 billion to keep the state’s last remaining nuclear power plant open.
Under the newly formalized award, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) will get annual payments that the federal government will provide “retroactively to compensate PG&E for [Diablo Canyon] operations in the prior year(s),” according to DOE’s federal register notice.
“Payments of credits are expected to occur annually beginning in 2025,” DOE wrote in the notice.
During the roughly year-long lag between DOE’s announcement of the award and the finalization of funding for Diablo Canyon, the federal agency was doing its environmental due-diligence about keeping the plant open through 2030 or so. That is about five years longer than the plants have left on their operating licenses with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
Meanwhile, PG&E in December applied for a license extension with the commission, virtually ensuring that Diablo Canyon’s two reactors will stay online at least until the NRC reviews the application. Environmental groups from California and elsewhere are fighting that decision on multiple legal fronts.
The Civilian Nuclear Credits PG&E will receive to keep Diablo Canyon online were signed into law as part of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the first of two major economic stimulus programs engineered by President Joe Biden’s (D) administration.
So far, PG&E is the only company to receive funding under the Civilian Nuclear Credits program. There is $5 billion worth of funding left in the program, but it is available only until 2026, under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The program was designed to bail out financially struggling nuclear power plants in regulated energy markets.
