The state of California this week asked the Department of Energy to alter requirements for its recently-unveiled nuclear bailout to ensure the Golden State’s last operating nuclear power plant is eligible for an award during the agency’s first funding cycle.
DOE’s April guidelines for its roughly $6 billion civil nuclear credits program present “overly broad” restrictions on which nuclear power plants are eligible for a bailout, state cabinet secretary Ana Matosantos told the agency in a letter dated Monday. The credits program as written would bar California’s Diablo Canyon Power Plant from getting a bailout, even as the state is “evaluating a temporary delay” on the facility’s 2025 shutdown, the letter said.
Matosantos took issue with a particular provision in the agency’s guidelines that precluded nuclear plants that recover more than 50% of their costs from a rate collection scheme known as cost-of-service regulation, such as Diablo Canyon, from applying for a federal credit.
Cost-of-service regulation, Matosantos argued, may not cover costs associated with keeping Diablo Canyon online. “For [Diablo Canyon] to extend operations, it would incur significant transition costs over the next four years to perform necessary studies, invest in plant enhancements, and obtain licenses and permits,” Matosantos said. “Yet there is no existing cost recovery mechanism for those transition costs.”
Matosantos requested that DOE remove the cost-of-service provision from its guidelines. She also suggested that the agency “explicitly include grid reliability and support for state clean energy goals, as well as emissions reductions, as a rationale for extending operations.”
California’s plea to DOE comes as state Gov. Gavin Newsom said in April that he would consider pursuing nuclear credits for Diablo Canyon.
Plant operator Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) told RadWaste Monitor Tuesday that the utility is “still assessing whether and how Diablo Canyon fits into the funding opportunity” should California decide it wants to keep the plant online “as an option for continued generation of clean baseload energy.”
A spokesperson for PG&E did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether it had been involved with Sacramento’s letter to DOE.
Meanwhile, the utility is planning for Diablo Canyon’s planned shutdown. PG&E in April announced that it had selected Orano USA to handle spent fuel management at the San Luis Obispo, Calif., plant once its last reactor goes offline in 2025.
Diablo Canyon is California’s last operating nuclear power plant after San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station shut down in 2013. The state’s former Rancho Seco Nuclear Generating Station and Humboldt Bay Nuclear Generating Station have both been decommissioned.
