Parties to a settlement agreement and memorandum of understanding for the planned sale of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant are allowing another month to secure final regulatory approval necessary for the deal.
The new date at which parties are authorized to withdraw from the settlement, if the Vermont Public Utility Commission has not ruled on the sale, has been pushed back from Oct. 31 to Nov. 30, according to an amendment filed Tuesday. The deadline had already been postponed from July 31.
The single-reactor nuclear power plant closed in December 2014, and owner Entergy announced plans nearly two years later to sell it to decommissioning specialist NorthStar Group Services. The new owner would take possession of the plant’s decommissioning trust fund and all responsibility for cleanup and spent fuel management. NorthStar says it can complete decommissioning as early as 2026 at a cost of roughly $811 million.
The companies filed a license transfer application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in February 2017; the agency issued its approval earlier this month.
As part of the effort to secure state approval for the sale, the companies made a number of financial and decommissioning commitments in a settlement with several state agencies, nongovernmental groups, and other parties. Entergy and NorthStar had hoped the Public Utility Commission would issue its decision within 30 days of the federal ruling or by Oct. 31. However, VPUC declined to commit to that schedule.
“The Public Utility Commission’s Procedural Order dated October 24, 2018 stated, inter alia, that the Commission ‘will seek to issue a decision resolving this case in a timely manner but cannot commit to issue a decision in this matter by October 31, 2018 … or within 30 days of notification of the NRC ruling,'” the amendment says. “In light of this guidance, the parties to the memorandum of understanding … have entered into an amendment to that document, and a corresponding amendment to the settlement agreement among those same parties and the Vermont Department of Health.”
