- Company announces closure of Perry, Davis-Besse and Beaver Valley plants
- NEI’s Korsnick says closures imperil grid resiliency and environmental goals
- FirstEnergy Solutions calls for immediate action from DOE secretary
Over the past five years, 18 nuclear reactors at 14 sites across the United States have either closed or their premature closings have been announced. The latest announcement arrived this week, when FirstEnergy Solutions Corp. (FES) alerted regional grid operator PJM Interconnection and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission of its intent to shutter, forever, nuclear reactors at its Perry, Davis-Besse and Beaver Valley stations.
With a total generating capacity of more than 4,000 megawatts, the four FirstEnergy reactors at three sites in Ohio and Pennsylvania provide jobs for about 2,300 people and have generated more than $540 million in local taxes throughout their operations*. The plant closures would occur in 2020 and 2021, but the damage will be felt for decades.
“We are no longer in a moment of modest market correction—our nation’s electricity grid is enduring unprecedented tumult and challenge, scores of communities across the country are confronting dramatic economic upheaval, and our broad environmental goals collapse when you remove thousands and thousands of megawatts of carbon-free, fuel-secure generation that nuclear plants represent,” Nuclear Energy Institute President and Chief Executive Officer Maria Korsnick said.
“Losing these plants will imperil the resilience of the grid,” Korsnick added. “The Department of Energy recently released a study that showed PJM was reliant upon economically challenged plants to provide generation during the bomb cyclone event this winter. The loss of an additional 4,000 megawatts of fuel-secure nuclear generation will make managing weather and other extreme events even more challenging.”
Korsnick also warned that closing nuclear plants makes electricity prices go up and is putting emissions reduction targets hopelessly out of reach.
These nuclear plants provide 24/7/365 electricity that does not release carbon dioxide or other air pollutants. Recent history shows that this generation will be overwhelmingly replaced by power from fossil fuel plants, which will make environmental goals impossible to achieve. We also know that electricity prices for consumers rise in the aftermath of plant closures.
FirstEnergy Presses DOE for Immediate Action
The day after the potential closures were announced, FirstEnergy Solutions, citing a serious threat to the stability of the electric grid, also called on Energy Secretary Rick Perry to issue an emergency order directing PJM to immediately begin negotiations to secure the long-term capacity of certain nuclear and coal-fired plants in the region and to compensate their owners “for the full benefits they provide to energy markets and the public at large, including fuel security and diversity.”
The threat, FES said, is caused by the premature retirement of plants that have many years of useful life but cannot operate profitably under current market conditions. The retirement of such at-risk plants is accelerating, the company said.
“PJM has demonstrated little urgency to remedy this problem any time soon—so immediate action by the Secretary is needed to alleviate the present emergency,” FES President Donald Schneider said.
Such quick and decisive intervention is necessary to avoid a crisis point where such baseload generation will cease to exist in competitive markets, and to ensure that nuclear and coal-fired generators operating within PJM are compensated fairly for their costs and the benefits that they provide such that they can continue to operate and ensure a dependable, affordable, safe, secure, and clean supply of electricity.
Continued inaction could lead to “significant, negative outcomes for the approximately 65 million people living and working within the PJM footprint,” he added.
FES filed an application for an order under Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act, which gives the secretary of energy extraordinary powers to confront emergencies.
Members of the Pennsylvania state legislature also reacted to the news, sharing their concerns about the impacts of the potential closures on local communities and the need for action.
“Yesterday’s announcement confirms what we have suspected for well over a year—and have been asking the federal government to assist us in addressing—that there are very serious and consequential underlying issues in the PJM wholesale electric markets which are being administered by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission,” State Sens. Ryan Aument (R) and John Yudichak (D) and State Reps. Becky Corbin (R) and Rob Matzie (D) said in a statement.
“The premature closure of three more nuclear power plants now compound what will be a significant loss of family-sustaining jobs, high capacity baseload clean energy, and the many direct and indirect economic benefits that surround the production of electricity from nuclear power plants.”
The legislators added that the announced plant closures require “answers from the federal government—specifically FERC and PJM, who are ultimately liable for the responsible management of the bulk power system.”
On average, a nuclear energy facility generates $470 million in sales of goods and services in the local community and nearly $40 million in total labor income annually. Each year, it pays about $67 million in federal taxes and almost $16 million in state and local taxes—crucial revenue that benefits schools, police, fire and other core infrastructure.
The nuclear plant closings that have occurred and been announced in recent years encompass the loss of over 15,000 MW of electric generating capacity and more than 10,000 direct jobs.
*Corrected. A previous version implied that this amount of taxes was paid annually.