Lack of an Illinois legislative solution has convinced Exelon to proceed with its plans to close its Byron and Dresden reactor complexes in September and November, respectively.
Exelon originally announced its plans to shut down the four reactors at the two sites in August 2020 because of revenue shortfalls in the hundreds of millions of dollars. That’s despite Dresden being licensed to operate for another 10 years, and Byron licensed for another 20 years. Exelon currently has 15 commercial reactors in several states.
During an Aug. 4, 2021 second quarters earnings call with analysts, Exelon CEO Christopher Cane said talks with the Illinois legislature have not led to Exelon getting guaranteed subsidies it needs in a future package of clean energy bills still being discussed with legislators.
“There’s been no progress toward enacting the legislation since the session ended and the retirement dates for the plants are now only weeks away. We don’t want to close these plants, but we cannot make decisions based on hope of legislation being passed in the future. We’ve been doing that since 2016, while significant losses have been incurred,” Crane said.
CFO Joseph Nigro added: “The plants face near-term financial challenges. … Closing the plant is the right economic decision and obviously not an easy one. I would tell you, we’ve seen an uptick in energy prices many times before, never have they helped”
Crane continued: “What we do is start into the phases of the chosen decommissioning using the decommissioning trust fund and it comes out of our expense column. It’s in the prefunded category of the decommissioning trust.”
The Byron and Dresden sites employ about 1,500 people.
The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Exelon might be suffering legislative blowback from a recent bribery scandal involving its subsidiary Commonwealth Edison.
Editor’s note 08/12/2021, 12:334 p.m. Eastern time. The story was corrected to show that 1,500 people work at the plants.
