Exelon Says Two Plants Fail to Clear Auction
May 25 2016 - 9:50AM
Dow Jones News
Exelon Corp. said two of its nuclear power plants, including one
plant it has said it would close if Illinois lawmakers don't
provide financial support, failed to secure contracts after a
recent round of bidding.
The company on Wednesday reiterated its stance that it would
shutter facilities in Clinton, Ill., and its Quad Cities nuclear
power plant, where 1,500 people are employed in total, if
"adequate" legislation isn't passed during the spring Illinois
legislative session, which ends May 31.
Annual capacity auctions are held where power producers bid for
long-term contracts to supply electricity. On Wednesday, the
company said the Quad Cities plant failed to clear the conditions
necessary to secure such contracts from grid operator PJM for the
2019-2020 planning year. Exelon's Three Mile Island nuclear plant
also didn't clear the auction. In April, the Clinton facility won
contracts for the 2016-17 year, but Exelon has said that the
agreed-upon price is "insufficient to cover cash operating
costs."
Exelon has said it would work to relocate some of the employees
if the plants close.
Exelon and other electricity producers in several states are
asking for hundreds of millions of dollars in financial support to
keep costly nuclear power plants in business. Exelon has said the
two plants it could close have lost a combined $800 million in the
past seven years.
The utilities claim the nuclear reactors should be given special
compensation because they are important to local economies and the
electrical grid's stability, and because they don't emit greenhouse
gases or other pollutants.
"The capacity market alone can't preserve zero-carbon emitting
nuclear plants that are facing the lowest wholesale energy prices
in 15 years," Chris Crane, Exelon's chief executive, said
Wednesday.
If the legislation Exelon desires doesn't pass, the Clinton
plant will close June 1, 2017, and Quad Cities will cease
operations a year later.
Exelon has 23 nuclear reactors operating primarily in Illinois,
Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey.
Write to Joshua Jamerson at joshua.jamerson@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 25, 2016 09:35 ET (13:35 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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