The sale of a Wisconsin nuclear power plant is getting more scrutiny, as a second decommissioning company got permission Tuesday to get involved in a review of the transaction.
Dominion Energy already agreed to sell the Kewaunee Power Station to EnergySolutions, Salt Lake City, for decommissioning, but the Wisconsin Public Service Commission is reviewing the transaction and has now given New York-based NorthStar to go on record about its objections to the sale, according to a Tuesday order.
Wisconsin law allows a party without legal right to intervene in a proceeding to step in nonetheless if it can prove its involvement will “promote the proper disposition of the issues,” Commission Judge Michael Newmark said.
“NorthStar asserts unique experience and expertise in the field of nuclear decommissioning, and first-hand knowledge of the particular transactions at issue,” Newmark said. The company also argued that it can “bring to bear facts with respect to EnergySolutions’ financial condition, and decommissioning track-record,” he said.
In its June request to intervene, NorthStar said that its “expertise, experience, and willingness to offer substantial protections to the ratepayers should be considered by the Commission.” The company currently has two decommissioning projects under its belt: the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant and Florida’s Crystal River plant.
NorthStar argued that the Carlton, Wisc., plant’s sale “was sole sourced behind closed doors, with no competitive process to vet the organization best suited to perform the work and preserve ratepayer funds.” The company said that it could decommission Kewaunee for roughly $500 million — a significantly lower price point than EnergySolutions’ projected $724 million.
Both Dominion and EnergySolutions opposed NorthStar’s request to intervene.
EnergySolutions and Dominion signed a sale agreement for Kewaunee in May. The plant, which shut down in 2013, already has its entire 38-cask spent fuel inventory in dry storage.
If EnergySolutions holds onto the Kewaunee project it will have a total of four decommissioning projects in its repertoire. The company is already dismantling Three Mile Island’s Unit 2 reactor in Pennsylvania, San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in California and Nebraska’s Fort Calhoun plant.
