The parties to the planned sale of the retired Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant hope to secure state regulatory approval just a month after the federal government signs off on the deal, according to a filing this week.
Staff at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected to decide sometime in the third quarter of this year whether to approve the license transfer for the facility from current owner Entergy to prospective buyer NorthStar Group Services. The Vermont Public Utility Commission must also rule that the sale is in the public good for it to proceed.
“To allow for a timely closing of the proposed transaction if approved, Joint Petitioners respectfully request that the PUC issue a decision in this docket within 30 days of the Joint Petitioners’ notification of the NRC decision,” NorthStar and Entergy stated in a joint filing Monday with the Public Utility Commission.
The companies have said they hope to complete the $1,000 transaction by the end of 2018. They did not immediately respond to questions on whether their request this week would have any impact on that schedule.
If the sale goes through, NorthStar would be responsible for decommissioning the plant and management of its spent fuel. It says it can complete decommissioning as early as 2026 at a cost of about $811 million. The company would keep some portion of the site decommissioning trust fund once the work is done.
NorthStar and Entergy, along with a number of Vermont government and nongovernmental bodies, in March agreed to a memorandum of understanding that established financial and remediation terms for the deal. Any party is allowed to withdraw from the MOU if the Public Utility Commission does not rule on the sale by July 31.
Given their request to the state commission, the companies pledged in their filing not to withdraw from the MOU any earlier than Sept. 28.
