California Gov. Gavin Newsom may seek to delay closing Pacific Gas and Electric Co.'s 2,240-MW Diablo Canyon nuclear plant thanks to a new $6 billion civil nuclear credit program established by the U.S. Energy Department that uses funds from the bipartisan infrastructure law enacted in 2021.
"The Governor is in support [of] keeping all options on the table to ensure we have a reliable grid, especially as we head into a summer where California ISO expects California could have more demand than supply during the kind of extreme events that California has experienced over the past two summers," Newsom spokesperson Erin Mellon said in an April 29 email. "This includes considering an extension to Diablo Canyon which continues to be an important resource as we transition to clean energy."
Mellon emphasized that it is ultimately PG&E's decision whether to apply for the funding.
During a recent meeting with the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times, Newsom reportedly said California "would be remiss not to put that on the table as an option" to help the state decarbonize faster and more reliably until enough new renewable energy capacity is added to California ISO to facilitate the plant's retirement.
The program would issue credits to nuclear plants operating in competitive markets that are at risk of early closure for economic reasons and whose retirement would increase carbon dioxide emissions. The Energy Department is taking applications through May 19 for the first cycle of awards, which will be issued to plants that have announced plans to permanently retire before Sept. 30, 2026.
Entergy Corp. executives said April 27 that despite a letter by Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer urging that federal resources be deployed to keep the 815-MW Palisades merchant nuclear plant running, the decommissioning process is too far along to change course, and a shutdown remains on track for May.
Diablo Canyon is scheduled to shut down in two phases in 2024 and 2025. To help replace the Golden State's single-largest source of electricity and carbon-free power, the California Public Utilities Commission in June 2021 ordered utilities and other load-serving entities to add at least 11,500 MW of clean energy resources between 2023 and 2026.
California regulators in April approved proposed 15-year contracts for nine large-scale lithium-ion battery storage projects expected to start up in 2023 and 2024, under development by PG&E, the utility subsidiary of PG&E Corp. But supply chain-related procurement hiccups, which have already affected PG&E's 182.5-MW/730-MWh Elkhorn facility in Moss Landing, threaten to further delay that timeline.
The Elkhorn project, including Megapack batteries from Tesla Inc., was originally scheduled to come online in December 2020. It is now anticipated to be operational "before summer 2022," PG&E spokesperson Paul Doherty said in an April 21 email.
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