The owner and prospective buyer of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant have revised their financial assurance plan to address concerns about the sale they hope to complete in 2018.
The update was noted in a Jan. 5 letter from Stephanie Hoffman, special counsel for the Vermont Public Service Department, to Judith Whitney, clerk for the state Public Utility Commission. It is an effort by power company Entergy and nuclear decommissioning specialist NorthStar Group Services to address “concerns raised by parties in this docket,” according to Hoffman.
Officials from several state agencies met with representatives from the two companies on Monday to discuss the updated proposal, and talks are continuing, according to a filing Thursday with the Vermont Public Utility Commission. The parties expect to submit a status report on the talks no later than Jan. 25 to the commission.
The financial assurance document and its terms, both in the original version and as amended, are confidential, Entergy said Monday. The company closed Vermont Yankee in 2014, and in 2016 announced plans to sell the plant for $1,000 to New York City-based NorthStar, which would take charge of decommissioning and keep some portion of the trust fund set aside for that work when it finishes the job. Vermont Yankee’s decommissioning trust stood at over $580 million at the end of November.
NorthStar has said it can finish decommissioning as early as 2026 at a cost of just over $811 million, but observers have expressed concerns about its financial readiness to handle site closure and manage Vermont Yankee’s spent reactor fuel until some form of off-site storage is available.
Specifically, NorthStar said it would commit $125 million for spent fuel operations at Vermont Yankee, Vermont Public Radio reported this week. But the Public Service Department, designated to represent state residents’ interests in the sale, has expressed concerns about the company’s capacity to meet its promise.
Both the state Public Utility Commission and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission must approve the sale.
“As is typical of proceedings before the PUC, the joint petitioners have engaged in discussions with the Vermont state agencies in an effort to resolve constructively the issues over which there has been disagreement,” Michael Twomey, vice president for external affairs at Entergy Wholesale Commodities, said in a statement. “We have made substantial progress in that regard and are now engaging the other parties to the docket on those issues. We remain committed to completing the sale to NorthStar by the end of this year.”
Twomey declined to discuss details of the Jan. 8 meeting on the financial assurance plan, which Hoffman’s letter said would involve both companies; officials from the state Public Service Department, Attorney General’s Office, and Agency of Natural Resources; and “counsel for all other interested parties.” That presumably refers to the set of nongovernmental and Native American organizations that have been authorized to intervene in the commission review of the sale.
NorthStar declined to comment on the revised financial assurance proposal, while the Public Service Department’s Hoffman did not respond to requests for comment.
As negotiations are continuing on the proposal, the state has asked that other proceedings in the Public Utility Commission process be postponed.
The second round of depositions on the sale began this week, with sessions scheduled with executives from Entergy and NorthStar, along with experts representing the Public Service Department.
Next up would be a Jan. 18 public hearing in the town of Brattleboro, which was already pushed back from its originally scheduled Jan. 4 date due to the massive winter storm that hit the East Coast last week. That would be followed by evidentiary hearings, scheduled from Jan. 22 to Feb. 2 in the city of Barre, giving parties and the commission an opportunity to question witnesses on their prior written testimony about the sale.
However, given the ongoing talks on the revised financial assurance proposal, the three state agencies on Thursday requested the Public Utility Commission postpone the start date for the evidentiary hearings to provide the parties with additional time to consider and negotiate the plan. The other intervenors supported the delay, according to the state filing.
The upcoming status report will suggest an updated schedule for the proceedings, including the evidentiary hearings, the state agencies said. They also asked that the public hearing be delayed, but did not offer a new date.
However, NorthStar and Entergy on Friday asked the Public Utility Commission not to reschedule the evidentiary hearings.
“Joint Petitioners are not insensitive to the desire expressed by the State Parties, and apparently also by certain other parties, to focus on settlement negotiations without having to prepare for the technical hearings scheduled to begin on January 22, 2018,” they stated in their own filing. “However, because the State Parties’ motion does not propose alternate dates that would enable the Commission to issue a decision in this Docket by this Spring, the motion increases the risk that a decision would not be rendered in sufficient time for any appeals to be exhausted such that the transaction can close by December 31, 2018.”
