Tag: Until
West Virginia Coal Plant Will Remain Open Until 2022
FirstEnergy on October 18 said its coal-fired Pleasants Power Station in West Virginia will stay open until June 2022, after earlier announcing the plant would close in January of next year.
FirstEnergy spokeswoman Jennifer Young said, “Keeping Pleasants in operation … allows the plant to fulfill current capacity obligations and provides additional time for evaluation of the long-term plan for the station prior to deactivation.”
The plant is operated by Allegheny Energy Supply (AES), a FirstEnergy subsidiary. Pushing back the closing date allows Pleasants Power to remain in operation until the transfer of the facility from AES to FirstEnergy Solutions (FES) is complete. The transfer is part of FirstEnergy’s bankruptcy settlement agreement with FES and the FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC), Young said.
FirstEnergy in February of this year said it would close the 1.3-GW Pleasants Power Station by January 1, 2019. The company has been suffering steep losses in competitive markets. It announced a plan in November 2016 to exit competitive generation and become a fully regulated company.…
Southern Company Could Delay Plant Vogtle Decision Until Late Summer
CEO Tom Fanning told Southern Co.’s shareholders attending the company’s annual meeting on May 24 that a decision on how to proceed with the Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion could take several more months.
The Vogtle expansion—one of two new nuclear construction projects underway in the U.S. utilizing Westinghouse’s AP1000 technology—has been in limbo, albeit still in progress, since Westinghouse filed for bankruptcy in late March. Yesterday, Reuters reported that Westinghouse had “reached a deal to borrow $ 800 million after allaying creditors’ concerns that the money would be flowing to non-bankrupt affiliates overseas.”
But that news doesn’t seem to have made Southern Co.’s decision to proceed with Plant Vogtle Units 3 and 4 any easier. Following the annual meeting, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that despite company officials previously stating that they had hoped to have a decision by today, or at least in June, Fanning is now aiming for August or “late summer.”
Less than two weeks ago, Southern Co. subsidiary Georgia Power announced that it had reached a new service agreement, which would allow for the transition of project management from Westinghouse to Southern Nuclear and Georgia Power “once the current engineering, procurement and construction contract is rejected in Westinghouse’s bankruptcy proceedings.”…