Beaver Valley nuclear power plant to remain open past 2021

• 4 years ago (2020-03-16)
• David Flin

North America 1021 Nuclear 659

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Energy Harbor Corp ., the owner of the Beaver Valley nuclear power plant in Shippingport, Pennsylvania, USA, has announced that the plant will no longer be shut down in 2021, as originally scheduled. The power plant has a total capacity of 1872MW. Energy Harbor is the new name of the formerly bankrupt FirstEnergy Solutions.

FirstEnergy Solutions notified regulators in March 2018 that it planned to close the plant, claiming that it was not economic to operate without subsidies for carbon-free electricity.

John Judge, President and CEO of Energy Harbor, said that Pennsylvania’s decision to join the Regional Greenhouse gas Initiative, a programme for capping and gradually decreasing CO2 emissions from the power sector in the northeast and mid-Atlantic region of America changed the balance. The programme requires coal, gas, and oil-fired power plants in the participating states to pay a fee for their carbon emissions. Much of the resulting revenue is to be spent on efforts to improve air quality and cut greenhouse gas emissions. Judge said that Pennsylvania joining the RGGI: “Will begin to help level the playing field for our carbon-free nuclear generators.”