The Department of Energy is scheduled to answer the public’s burning questions about its forthcoming tax-credits program for economically-troubled nuclear power plants, the agency’s nuclear energy office said this week.
DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) will host two public seminars next week to answer questions about its request for information (RFI) on the civil nuclear credits program, the agency said in a Tweet Wednesday. The first session will take place Feb. 28 from 10:00 a.m. to noon Eastern time, and the second will happen March 3 from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. Eastern time, NE said. Interested participants can register here.
The agency Feb. 15 unveiled its RFI on the nuclear credits program, a roughly $6 billion line-item on the Joe Biden administration’s bipartisan infrastructure package made law in November. DOE is seeking stakeholder input on how it should go about allocating the federal cash to eligible nuclear plant operators. The agency is accepting comments on the RFI until March 17.
As part of its proposed procedure, DOE has laid out a list of criteria for qualifying operators, and has suggested doling out credits over a four-year period at $1.2 billion per year. The agency also proposed a review panel made up of DOE personnel to assess credit applicants.
The infrastructure law gives DOE around four months to work out its process for auctioning off the nuclear credits, which means that March is the agency’s last month of deliberation. DOE has said that it plans to issue the first round of credits by fall 2023.
Financial assistance for nuclear power would come too late for some plants. The Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Michigan is slated to shut down in the spring.
In 2021, three plants were slated for closure — New York’s Indian Point plant and the Byron and Dresden plants in Illinois. Indian Point went dark last April, but the Illinois sites were saved in September by a last-minute bailout from the state.
