The head of the nuclear industry lobby told Wall Street analysts last week that more of the nation’s nuclear fleet will retire prematurely, hurting efforts to meet carbon emission goals, without immediate action by federal and state policymakers to improve their finances.
Marvin Fertel, CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute, noted that eight reactors have closed or announced closings in the last three years, half of them citing market issues.
NEI says the nation’s 99 nuclear plants generate 63% of the country’s zero-carbon power. In 2015, the group says, nuclear plants had a record 91.9% capacity factor and reduced the average refueling outage to 36 days.
“It simply defies logic to shut down carbon-free nuclear plants, each of which employs 600-plus people, and replace them with natural gas plants employing maybe 30 people and whose cost of producing electricity is nearly 60% higher,” Fertel said during the group’s annual meeting with financial analysts Thursday.
Policymakers in Ohio and Illinois are considering actions that could bolster the finances of nuclear plants, whose revenues have been pinched as low natural gas prices have reduced clearing prices in wholesale energy markets.
New York utilities would be required to procure more than 15% of their forecasted load in 2020 from nuclear plants under a proposal last month by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. (See New York Would Require Nuclear Power Mandate, Subsidy.)
PJM’s Capacity Performance rules, approved by FERC last year, could boost capacity revenues over time.
But Fertel said aid isn’t coming quickly enough. “We have no time to waste. If we do not demonstrate a greater sense of urgency about addressing the problems in the electricity markets, we will lose more nuclear plants,” he said.
— Rich Heidorn Jr.
