How much longer Waterford’s Millstone nuclear power station will continue operating is a major concern for Connecticut’s energy watchdogs and planners.
Its owner, Virginia-based Dominion Resources, says it has no plans to close Millstone, whose two nuclear reactors separately are licensed to operate through 2035 and 2045.
The plant is a “critical resource” for both Dominion and the state, Kevin R. Hennessy, Dominion’s director of state and federal governmental affairs, says.
However, he cautions, economic pressures could affect the situation.
“We’re not immune,” he says, as relatively cheap natural gas prices and other factors squeeze Millstone’s profitability.
Nuclear plants around the country have closed or have been earmarked for closing in recent years as they become prohibitively costly to run. Vermont Yankee, closed in 2014, and Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts, set to close in 2019, are the most recent examples in New England.
Those closings will leave Millstone and New Hampshire’s Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant as the region’s only nuclear power facilities.
If Millstone were to close, Connecticut residents would see electric rates jump, Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Deputy Commissioner Katie Dykes says. “It’s a sure bet there would be a significant increase in rates,” she says.
Millstone’s power output amounts to around half the state’s total electricity demand today.
The rest of Connecticut’s electricity comes mainly from natural-gas-fired power plants, which supply about 44 percent of the state’s needs, with the rest from a mix of renewable energy sources such as hydroelectric, solar, and wind.
Natural gas supplies so far have been more than adequate in New England, although ISO New England, the region’s power-grid operator, has cautioned that high demand can overburden existing delivery system — especially during the coldest months.
Dykes says the region’s reliance on natural gas for power generation has jumped as coal- and oil-fired plants have been phased out to meet clean-air regulations. From 2000 to 2015, she says, New England’s reliance on natural-gas-powered plants has risen from 15 percent to 49 percent of total supply. Conversely, the amount of the region’s electricity supplied by oil- and coal-fired plants has plummeted from 20 percent to between 2 and 4 percent.
If nuclear power plants were removed from the equation, Dykes says, it could affect the stability of electricity availability during peak demand as well as rates.
“We would have a real reliability challenge in New England,” Dykes says should Millstone close.
Uncertainties around the future of nuclear power have left state and New England energy regulators and planners looking for alternatives if Millstone one day becomes economically unfeasible.
Energy regulators and power producers from Connecticut and the rest of New England will meet in Boston in August to discuss out how to deal with a dwindling number of nuclear power plants when the demand for cleaner power production from sources like nuclear, is rising, Dykes says.
There is some movement on the part of state lawmakers to find a way to keep nuclear power production competitive, she adds.
Connecticut’s General Assembly, for example, considered legislation during the recent session that would have permitted Dominion to sell power from Millstone under new long-term contracts to help stabilize revenues. The bill passed the Senate but was not taken up by the House before the session ended.
