Minnesota May Be Next to Support Nuclear Plants
Following the lead of Illinois and New York, which have enacted policies supporting nuclear power plants, the Minnesota Legislature is weighing a bill that could help the owner of two nuclear facilities within its borders.
Minnesota is home to the single-unit 671-MW Monticello nuclear plant and the dual-unit 1,100-MW Prairie Island plant (Figure 1). Xcel Energy owns a 100% stake in both of them.
Current Minnesota regulations require investor-owned utilities, such as Xcel, to file multi-year integrated resource plans (IRPs) with the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (MPUC). Companies give details about their future generation mix in the IRPs. Once the MPUC approves the plan, the utility decides how much money to allocate toward capital, and operations and maintenance expenses at each of its generation facilities.…