“Entergy Corp. cited market conditions and operating costs in announcing the closing of the Pilgrim Nuclear Generating Station on Cape Cod Bay, 40 miles south of Boston”.
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ETR says current and forecast power prices have fallen ~$10/MW hour for an annual loss of more than $40M in revenue for the Pilgrim plant.
Pilgrim is expected to lose between $10 million and $30 million in each of 2015, 2016 and 2017, Entergy said.
Entergy also blamed Pilgrim’s problems on wholesale power market design flaws that continue to suppress energy and capacity prices in the region that do not provide adequate compensation to merchant nuclear plants for the benefits they provide.
“The decision to close Pilgrim was incredibly hard because of the effect on our employees and the communities in which they work and live”, wrote Leo Denault, Entergy’s chairman and chief executive officer, in a press release.
Entergy said it has notified the independent grid operator, ISO New England Inc (ISO-NE), that Pilgrim will not participate as a capacity resource in the market after 31 May 2019, meaning that the plant will shut by 1 June 2019.
The plant employs about 650 people, majority from the local area.
Entergy also has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in equipment in recent years, but it faced even more costly upgrades as well as additional oversight by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
“The real issue here is the financial viability of the plant”, said Bill Mohl, president of Entergy Wholesale Commodities.
Entergy’s nuclear woes are not unique to Pilgrim.
Pilgrim provides about 6 percent of New England’s electricity and 14 percent of Massachusetts’ electricity.
“Plymouth has absolutely been looking ahead”, he said. Beyond literally being an electricity powerhouse for four decades, it has significantly helped improve the region’s air quality and, to this day, has an important role to play in regional and national efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the electric sector.
Markey said the Pilgrim shutdown was further evidence that the marketplace is properly hostile to nuclear energy.
“Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station is just the latest example of how nuclear power simply can not compete in the current energy market”, he said.
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In response to the news, Gov. Charlie Baker bemoaned the loss of clean energy generation.
