Exelon nuclear plants clear latest auction
Exelon Corp. announced Tuesday that all of its Illinois nuclear plants in PJM’s territory, including the Quad-Cities Generating Station, cleared in the power grid operator’s transition capacity auction.
The news means the plants, including the economically troubled Cordova plant, can sell supplemental power to the grid in the 2016-2017 planning year. It is positive news for the Quad-City facility, which a week ago, lost out on its bid to sell power to the grid in PJM’s 2018-2019 planning year.
The Quad-City facility is one of three Illinois nuclear plants that Exelon has threatened could face a premature closure because they are not competitive with other energy producers that are collecting billions in state and federal subsidies. The other Exelon plants are Byron and Clinton.
“Clearing this auction was vital to Quad-Cities station,” said Bill Stoermer, Exelon communications manager. “This ensures that Quad-Cities has a financial commitment with PJM to sell power into 2017.”
“These auction results as well as other factors are being considered as we continue to analyze the current and future economics of Quad-Cities station.”
PJM administers the wholesale power market for the upper United States and holds capacity auctions annually to ensure enough power is being generated to meet demand. The grid operator’s region covers all or part of 13 states and the District of Columbia. Transitional auctions supplement the prior base capacity auctions.
The other Illinois Exelon plants to clear the auction are Braidwood, Byron, Dresden and LaSalle.
