By Wayne Barber
Entergy CEO Leo Denault said this week the company is determined to “finish strong” as it winds down operations at its non-utility nuclear power plants including the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts.
“With critical decisions behind us, our strategy to execute a planned orderly exit of our Merchant business remains on track. Our employee’s dedication to the safe operations of our plants through this transition exemplifies the essence of our merchant team’s determination to finish strong,” he said during the company’s latest earnings call with financial analysts.
Denault was discussing retirement schedules for several of the Entergy merchant plants in the Northeast and Midwest. However, Pilgrim has been a particular thorn in the company’s side for years.
In fact, on the same day Denault made his comments, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Wednesday issued a confirmatory action letter laying out the operational corrections Entergy has pledged to make at Pilgrim before it is retired in 2019.
The nuclear industry regulator in 2015 placed the Cape Cod power plant in Column 4 of its Action Matrix, the lowest safety rating for an operating nuclear reactor, following a series of operational failures and unplanned shutdowns dating to 2013.
That led to a special NRC inspection that wrapped up earlier this year. Entergy updated its recovery plan for Pilgrim based on the agency’s findings, NRC Region I Administrator Daniel Dorman wrote in an Aug. 2 letter to Brian Sullivan, site vice president for Entergy Nuclear Operations.
Entergy has pledged to implement action plans in seven recovery areas: nuclear safety culture, corrective action program, human performance, operations standards and site leadership, procedure quality, safety relief valve white finding, and engineering programs and equipment performance. “The NRC reviewed the revised PNPS Recovery Plan and determined that effective implementation of the plan would satisfactorily address the fundamental problem areas that led to the transition of Pilgrim to Column 4 in a manner that should lead to sustained performance improvement,” Dorman wrote.
The company is required to notify the regulator in writing when all measures cited in the confirmatory action letter are completed. A written alert is also mandatory if Entergy intends to make changes to the program or go off-schedule. The NRC retains the authority to issue additional orders or enforcement measures for any breaches of agency rules identified in future inspections.
The NRC plans to hold five quarterly inspections, which would conclude by the end of 2018, to target the seven areas identified in the confirmatory action letter. The letter indicates that all actions should be completed by the end of June 2018.
“We don’t have any expectations as to when, or if, Pilgrim will exit Column 4 of our Action Matrix,” said NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan. “We have publicly stated it is possible that will not occur prior to the plant permanently ceasing operations in 2019.”
The NRC updates its Action Matrix on a quarterly basis. The nuclear regulator’s annual assessment letters for each plant are issued in March. When, and if, Pilgrim gets outs of Column 4 depend on Entergy demonstration sufficient progress at the plant, Sheehan added.
“The station expects to demonstrate this before the planned shutdown of the plant in June 2019,” Pilgrim spokesman Patrick O’Brien said. Costs for the Pilgrim improvement effort “are in the tens of millions of dollars,” he added.
The confirmatory action letter focuses largely with day-to-day operation of the nuclear plant and not really spent fuel or decommissioning-related issues, the NRC said in an email. But “we fully expect that improvements we make will carry forward through 2019 and beyond,” according to O’Brien.
Entergy is in the process of wrapping up operations at its remaining non-utility nuclear plants within its Entergy Wholesale Commodities subsidiary.
Entergy has already retired its Vermont Yankee nuclear plant. It is abandoning its NRC license renewal applications for its two Indian Point reactors in New York and will retire both by May 2021. The company plans to retire its Palisades plant in Michigan in fall 2018 and Pilgrim will be retired by June 2019.
Entergy has not announced any plans to retire any of its regulated utility nuclear plants in the Southeast.
Pilgrim had a balance $1.01 billion in its nuclear decommissioning trust as of June 30, according to Entergy figures released with its quarterly earnings report.
