Entergy to Shutter Plymouth’s Nuclear Power Plant

Entergy cited “poor market conditions, reduced revenues and increased operational costs”.

“The decision to close Pilgrim was incredibly hard because of the effect on our employees and the communities in which they work and live”, Leo Denault, Entergy’s chairman and chief executive officer said.

But last month, federal inspectors announced they would be increasing oversight of the 43-year-old nuclear plant due to safety violations. We continued to sound those warnings when Entergy prematurely retired the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant a year ago. Entergy said the exact date for closing the plant would be decided in the first half of 2016. It noted that, as of the end of September 2015, the plant’s decommissioning fund stood at a few $870 million, “representing excess financial assurance of approximately $240 million for licence termination activities above Nuclear Regulatory Commission required levels”.

Low current and forecast low wholesale energy prices are expected to lead to annual losses of more than $40 million in revenue for Pilgrim.

Entergy’s nuclear woes are not unique to Pilgrim.

Lampert, who lives in neighboring Duxbury and has been criticizing Pilgrim’s safety lapses for years, said, “Because they’re losing money, that places us in an especially risky period of time, because you have an old reactor that’s ranked in the bottom” for safety and requires “a lot of maintenance”.

The decision to close Pilgrim 1, a General Electric Type 3 boiling water reactor with a viable operating license that expires June 8, 2032, was based on a number of financial factors, Entergy said. Should the company decide to not go through with the biennial refueling outage, the plant could be shutdown even sooner. The question remains how Massachusetts will meet its own carbon goals alongside federal [Clean Power Plan] targets given the nuclear retirement.

In addition, Entergy, like other nuclear operators, said Pilgrim’s economic performance was undermined by unfavorable state energy proposals that subsidize renewable energy resources and a state proposal to provide above-market prices to utilities in Canada for hydro power. Entergy officials today said the improvements were likely to cost at least $45 million to $60 million.

When asked if there is anything that could make Entergy reconsider the shutdown, Mohl said the notification to ISO New England eliminated the possibility of reversing the decision.

The decision to close the plant will also have a significant impact on the Town of Plymouth.