Energy Harbor Corp. on Friday said it had reversed its decision to retire the two reactors at its Beaver Valley Power Station in Pennsylvania.
The announcement came just weeks after the former FirstEnergy Solutions emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy with a new name and no longer owned by FirstEnergy Corp.
Management notified regional power transmission organization PJM Interconnection that it was retracting deactivation notices filed for the reactors in March 2018 for the Shippingport plant, according to an Energy Harbor press release. The reactors had been scheduled for closure in May 2021 and October 2021.
“The decision to rescind the deactivations for Beaver Valley was largely driven by the efforts of Governor Wolf’s administration to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) which will begin to help level the playing field for our carbon-free nuclear generators,” Energy Harbor President and CEO John Judge said in the release. “In addition, our retail growth strategy now offers carbon free energy that allows customers to meet their environmental, social and sustainability goals. We are excited about the RGGI process implementation in early 2022 but would need to revisit deactivation if RGGI does not come to fruition as expected.”
The company has verbally alerted the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to the decision. It will file a mandatory formal notification within 30 days.
In March 2018, the then-FirstEnergy Solutions announced plans to close three nuclear power plants: Beaver Valley; the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station in Oak Harbor, Ohio, by May 2020; and the Perry Nuclear Power Plant in Perry, Ohio, by May 2021. FirstEnergy Solutions rescinded the decision on the Ohio facilities last July after the state enacted a $150 million annual bailout.
