The utility company in charge of California’s last operating nuclear power plant last week made an about-face on its plans to close and decommission the facility as scheduled telling local media that it would seek a Department of Energy bailout.
Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) “expect[s] to submit an application” to DOE in hopes of getting a chunk of the agency’s roughly $6 billion civil nuclear credits program for Diablo Canyon Power Plant, a utility spokesperson told the California Globe June 6. The spokesperson cited support from California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and a recent revision to the DOE program’s guidelines as the main drivers for such a decision.
Amid pressure from PG&E and Sacramento, DOE June 30 decided to alter eligibility guidelines for the credit program’s first of five $1.2 billion funding cycles, doing away with a restriction prohibiting nuclear plants, such as Diablo Canyon, that use a ratemaking scheme known as cost-of-service regulation, from receiving a bailout. The agency also moved the deadline for submissions to Sep. 6 from July 5.
A PG&E spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment on when it would submit its bid to DOE.
The utility’s change of heart on Diablo Canyon comes after PG&E vice president Maureen Zawalick in June downplayed reports that a nuclear credits application could be coming, saying at Exchange Monitor’s Decommissioning Strategy Forum that the utility hadn’t “changed any of our planning” and that it was “full steam ahead on decommissioning.”
Meanwhile, an amendment to a sweeping energy bill still working its way through the California state house would establish a state-stewarded fund of around $75 million that could be used to extend the life of power plants set to close, potentially helping the Golden State to prop up Diablo Canyon. As of Monday, the measure, part of an effort to streamline the Golden State’s transition to clean energy, had yet to land on Gov. Newsom’s desk.
