US NRC Blog Update: When A Plant Changes Hands

When A Plant Changes Hands

Leave a comment Posted by Moderator on August 23, 2016

Neil Sheehan
Public Affairs Officer
Region I
In February, Entergy announced plans to permanently shut down the James A. FitzPatrick nuclear power plant on Jan. 27, 2017. However, there are indications – based on recent negotiations between Entergy and Exelon – that the facility may not cease operations after all.
On Aug. 9, Exelon announced it had reached a deal to purchase the Scriba (Oswego County), N.Y., boiling-water reactor from Entergy for $110 million. This agreement occurred after the New York State Public Service Commission approved Zero Emission Credits, or subsidies, which will help upstate N.Y. nuclear plants stay online amid historically low energy prices.
Challenging market conditions had earlier prompted Entergy to announce the plant’s closure. The NRC in 2008 had approved a renewal of FitzPatrick’s initial 40-year operating license, extending it until October 2034.
Before the sale of the plant can be completed, the transaction will undergo reviews by the NRC, as well as other regulatory agencies. NRC staff will evaluate Exelon’s technical and financial capabilities to ensure the plant’s safe operation and to provide reasonable assurance that adequate funding is available to safely decommission the unit after the final shutdown has occurred.
Exelon currently owns and operates 22 reactors at 13 plant sites in the U.S. The company also runs Fort Calhoun under a contract with the Omaha Public Power District.
We will publish on our website and in the Federal Register a notice of having received the license transfer application, dated August. 18, and the opportunity to request a hearing on the proposal. As for the process itself, such reviews generally take from six months to a year. For example, when the FitzPatrick operating license was transferred from the New York Power Authority to Entergy in 2000, the review was completed in about half a year.
As a footnote, Exelon already owns the Nine Mile Point nuclear power plant, which is located next-door to FitzPatrick.