Decommissioning company EnergySolutions is one step closer to finalizing its purchase of a former Wisconsin nuclear power plant after a state regulator approved the transaction this week.
The Wisconsin Public Service Commission (WPSC) unanimously approved Wednesday the sale of Kewaunee Power Station, to EnergySolutions from current operator Dominion Energy. WPSC is now the second regulator to give the transaction a green light — the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the transaction in January.
A spokesperson for WPSC told RadWaste Monitor via email Wednesday that, following its verbal approval, the commission should issue a written order okaying the sale “sometime in mid to late June.”
EnergySolutions president and CEO Ken Robuck applauded WPSC in an emailed statement Thursday for its “careful and detailed consideration” of the sale. “We will immediately begin moving forward with the safe and effective decommissioning of the Kewaunee Power Station,” he said.
WPSC’s decision puts an end to a months-long review process that included some controversial cross-examination from a competing decommissioning company. New York-based NorthStar was allowed to intervene in the commission’s proceedings in September despite protests from EnergySolutions.
NorthStar had complained that the process for selecting Kewaunee’s decommissioning contractor had not been competitive, and that the company could dismantle the plant for around $500 million — significantly less than EnergySolutions’ quoted $724 million for the job. NorthStar also suggested that WPSC implement a fixed-price contract to decommission Kewaunee, and that the contract include financial assurances that would protect against misuse of decommissioning trust funds.
“NorthStar’s purpose was to do right by the ratepayers with risk transfer and transparency to cost as we have in Vermont and Florida and uphold the integrity of the industry,” a spokesperson for the company told RadWaste Monitor in a statement Wednesday. “We are surprised that the PSC unfortunately chose not to exercise its jurisdiction to secure the financial protections for Wisconsin ratepayers that have been provided to ratepayers in other states with similar decommissioning projects.”
EnergySolutions, for its part, called NorthStar’s claims “misleading” and said that its competitor hadn’t provided any evidence that it could decommission the plant at a lower cost. The company also pushed back on NorthStar’s suggested fixed-price plan, saying in a March brief that such a contract “would serve nothing more than NorthStar’s commercial interests and potentially shift risks back onto ratepayers.”
EnergySolutions and Dominion agreed to terms on the Carlton, Wisc., Kewaunee plant’s sale in May 2021. Once the transaction becomes final, EnergySolutions will have four decommissioning projects under its belt, including California’s San Onofre plant, Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant in Nebraska and Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island Unit 2.
WPSC’s review drew onlookers from the larger nuclear decommissioning industry, including Sam Shakir, president of Westinghouse’s environmental services division, who told RadWaste Monitor in an exclusive interview in March that the company was following the Kewaunee proceedings “with some interest and curiosity.”
