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CPUC Backs PG&E Plan to Retire Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant

January 12, 2018

California regulators have approved Pacific Gas & Electric’s (PG&E’s) application to retire the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant by year-end 2025, ending a protracted battle over the generating station that pitted local economic interests against environmentalists and other opponents of nuclear power.

The state Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) on January 11 voted unanimously to accept PG&E’s request to decommission the two reactors at the plant near Avila Beach when operating licenses for the units expire in November 2024 and August 2025, respectively. The 2,256-MW plant is the lone remaining operating nuclear facility in California.

The CPUC also authorized PG&E to recover from ratepayers $ 241.2 million in costs associated with the retirement: $ 211.3 million to keep employees until the plant in closed; $ 11.3 million to retrain displaced workers; and $ 18.6 million for operating license renewal costs.

CPUC President Michael Picker, the commissioner assigned to today’s proceeding, said “Diablo Canyon has been a source of reliable and clean electricity, and employment, in San Luis Obispo [County] for many years now.…

Michigan Backs Gas Plants for Upper Peninsula

October 31, 2017

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Michigan regulators on October 25 gave their support to Upper Michigan Energy Resources Corp.’s (UMERC) plan for two new natural gas-fired plants in the state’s Upper Peninsula (U.P.). The plants approved by the Michigan Public Service Commission (PSC) would be built in Baraga and Negaunee townships.

The plants are designed to produce a combined 183 MW of generation. Construction could begin by year-end, and the current schedule calls for both plants to begin operating in 2019. Electricity from the two facilities would partly replace generation from We Energies’ 359-MW Presque Isle Power Plant on Lake Superior in Marquette, Michigan, where the last five coal-fired units are scheduled to close in 2020.

The first of the five remaining units (Units 5 through 9) at Presque Isle begin operating in 1974; the last of those five came online in 1979. Units 1 and 2 at Presque Isle were retired in 2007, and Units 3 and 4 were closed in 2009.

The new gas-fired plants have a combined price tag of $ 277 million.…

Germany Backs Measure to Replace Renewable Incentives with Competitive Auctions

July 15, 2016

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Lawmakers in Germany have voted to replace subsidies for wind and solar with competitively priced electricity prices.

The country’s upper (Bundesrat) and lower (Bundestag) legislative chambers on July 8 voted to adopt an amendment to the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG 2016) introduced by Minister of Economics and Energy Sigmar Gabriel. The legislation aims to replace feed-in tariffs with renewable energy auctions.

“[Renewable generators] are no longer small puppies,” Gabriel said as he introduced the bill earlier this year. “They have grown up and they need to face market pressure.”

The law is credited with enabling Germany’s energy transition, Energiewende, which calls for the country’s current share of renewable power to increase from 33% in 2015 to 40% in 2025, 55% in 2035, and 80% in 2050.

One of the earliest iterations of the law, EEG 2012 guaranteed feed-in tariffs for renewable power producers, setting fixed prices per kilowatt-hour, emphasizing priority access for renewables, and binding grid operators to buy all renewable power and sell it on the exchange.…