If BPU approves filing, ratepayers could shell out $900 million over three years, but independent market monitor says units will operate in the black through 2021
Credit: Creative Commons
Tom Johnson reports
for NJ Spotlight:
PSEG Nuclear yesterday became the first nuclear plant owner to seek hundreds of millions of dollars in ratepayer subsidies to keep its three generating units in South Jersey open.
In a voluminous filing with the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities that filled nearly 200 boxes, the company is seeking to be awarded so-called zero-emission certificates, which are subsidized by a surcharge to be added to all utility customers’ bills. The filing could cost $300 million a year over the next three years, if approved.
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After business hours yesterday, no other company had filed an application with the BPU to qualify for the subsidies, according to a spokesperson for the agency. Nuclear plants outside New Jersey are allowed to seek the credits under the law.
The proposed subsidies are part of a measure signed by Gov. Phil Murphy last spring after a bitter legislative battle that Public Service Enterprise Group, the parent of PSEG Nuclear, mounted to prop up its nuclear plants. Without new financial incentives, the company argued the plants faced the prospect of closing.
PSEG claims closing plants would spike bills
Nationwide, six nuclear plants have closed prematurely in recent years as they faced steep economic challenges stemming from cheap natural gas in a competitive energy marketplace. If PSEG closes its plants, consultants for the company contend they would be replaced by fossil-fuel units that would spike ratepayer bills by as much $400 million.
But critics of the proposed subsidies have argued that PSEG has yet to provide any information that its plants are not profitable. Those arguments have been fortified by Joseph Bowring, the independent market monitor for PJM, the operator of the nation’s largest power grid.
