The corporate parent of Delmarva Power announced plans to shut down the well-known Three Mile Island nuclear power plant.
Exelon Corporation will prematurely retire the generating station near Harrisburg, PA, on or about September 30, 2019, unless the site can be designated as a source of clean energy.
TMI was the site of America’s worst nuclear power plant accident. While there were no injuries or high radiation levels outside the complex, the incident sharply increased monitoring and added to the expense of running nuclear plants.
Exelon has placed a big bet on nuclear power and operates the nation’s largest fleet of plants using that form of fuel.
“Today is a difficult day, not just for the 675 talented men and women who have dedicated themselves to operating Three Mile Island safely and reliably every day, but also for their families, the communities and customers who depend on this plant to produce clean energy and support local jobs,” said Chris Crane, Exelon CEO. “Like New York and Illinois before it, the Commonwealth has an opportunity to take a leadership role by implementing a policy solution to preserve its nuclear energy facilities and the clean, reliable energy and good‐paying jobs they provide. We are committed to working with all stakeholders to secure Pennsylvania’s energy future, and will do all we can to support the community, the employees and their families during this difficult period.”
Exelon is taking the first steps to shut down the nuclear plant, including:
- Informing key stakeholders, which will include sending PJM a deactivation notice and making permanent shutdown notifications to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission within 30 days;
- Immediately taking one‐time charges of $65‐110 million for 2017, and accelerating approximately $1.0‐1.1 billion in depreciation and amortization through the announced shutdown date;
- Terminating capital investment projects required for long‐term operation of TMI; and stopping 2019 fuel purchases and outage planning, impacting about 1,500 outage workers.
Exelon warned the closing would increase air pollution, hurt the resiliency of the electric grid, raise energy prices for consumers and weaken the state’s economy.
Despite producing 93 percent of the Commonwealth’s emissions‐free electricity and avoiding 37 million tons of carbon emissions — the equivalent of keeping 10 million cars off the road every year — nuclear power is not included in the state’s Alternative Energy Portfolio Standard that includes solar, wind and hydroelectric energy.
Other options include establishing a zero emissions credit program, similar to the approach being implemented in Illinois and New York.
