By John Stang
In the wake of President Donald Trump ordering the federal government to help keep struggling nuclear and coal-fired power plants afloat, FirstEnergy Solutions contends it still needs help from the governments of Ohio and Pennsylvania to keep its four reactors online.
Several news organizations reported a week ago that Trump has ordered Energy Secretary Rick Perry to take “immediate steps” to help financially troubled coal and nuclear plants. A leaked memo, first reported by Bloomberg News, said that would include DOE using its emergency powers to require power grid companies to buy electricity from such facilities for two years, The New York Times reported.
“We welcome President Trump’s support and his recognition of the critical role that our plants play in the security and resilience of the nation’s electrical system. We look forward to reviewing Secretary Perry’s order when it is issued,” Don Moul, president of FES Generation Companies, said in a prepared statement. “While this marks an important first step, until timing and details of the order are clear, additional support at the state level will be necessary to protect the jobs in Ohio and Pennsylvania.”
Just before declaring bankruptcy in late March, Akron, Ohio-based FirstEnergy Solutions said it would by October 2021 halt power production at three nuclear plants: the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station in Oak Harbor, Ohio; the Perry Nuclear Power Plant in Perry, Ohio; and the Beaver Valley Power Station in Shippingport, Pa.
The company then asked Perry to use his authority under Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act to order regional power clearinghouse PJM Interconnection to sign contracts that guarantee FirstEnergy’s nuclear and coal plants can fully recover their costs along with a return on their investments. A second request has been made to help nuclear and coal-fired plants under the Defense Production Act of 1950.
Perry has not formally responded to the requests. Senior DOE officials this week said cost forecasts and other details of the bailout ordered by Trump were still being prepared, according to news reports.
A bill to help FirstEnergy Solutions increase residential power rates by $2.50 a month and business electric rates by $3,500 a month or by 5 percent — whichever is less— for its nuclear plants has stalled in the Ohio General Assembly. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported in mid-May that Republican state Rep. William Seitz, Ohio House Public Utilities Committee chairman, decided to not to move that bill out of committee.
“I am not sensing a keen desire on the part of the House members to vote on this and doubt that we will have more hearings in the near future unless something cataclysmic should happen,” Seitz told the newspaper. Seitz could not be reached for comment late this week.
No legislation pertaining to this topic has been introduced in Pennsylvania’s General Assembly.
Trump’s decision has prompted criticism from PJM Interconnections, members of Congress, states’ attorneys general, environmental organizations, the American Petroleum Institute, and natural gas industry associations.
PJM Interconnections, the regional power clearinghouse for several Midwest and central Atlantic coast states, buys FirstEnergy Solution’s electricity. PJM said it has not received any official document from DOE on the FirstEnergy request.
“Our analysis of the recently announced planned deactivations of certain nuclear plants has determined that there is no immediate threat to system reliability. Markets have helped to establish a reliable grid with historically low prices. Any federal intervention in the market to order customers to buy electricity from specific power plants would be damaging to the markets and therefore costly to consumers. There is no need for any such drastic action,“ PJM said in a prepared statement.
In a letter Thursday to Perry, over 30 Democratic lawmakers protested the potential FirstEnergy Solutions bailout and other anticipated efforts to prop up the coal and nuclear power sectors.
“We ask that you cease the false narrative that bailing out uneconomic energy sources in competitive markets is needed for electrical grid resilience, and to cease attempting to use emergency authorities to intervene in planned power plant retirements,” the lawmakers wrote. “Using emergency authorities for ubsubstantiated bailouts would be unprecedented intervention in U.S. energy markets at great taxpayer expense.”
Meanwhile, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and other unidentified GOP senators are working on a way to counter Trump’s decisions on bailing out troubled nuclear and coal power plants.
A week ago, Corker tweeted twice with links to a Wall Street Journal article on the Trump administration’s new steel and aluminum tariffs and a Washington Post analysis on Trump picking which corporations should get federal support, with FirstEnergy Solutions as its prime example.
“These two stories feel like something I could have read in a local Caracas newspaper last week, not in America. Venezuela, here WE come!” Corker tweeted.
So far, nothing public has emerged following Corker’s tweets.
