POWERnews

Dominion on Tuesday permanently shuttered its 556-MW Kewanee nuclear plant located about 40 miles southeast of Green Bay, Wis. The 40-year-old Westinghouse pressurized water reactor generated 148 million MWh over its lifetime.

Panelists at a House hearing today refuted varied claims concerning if and how increased natural gas and renewables generation pose widespread challenges to the reliability of the electric grid. Some pointed to ineffective rules in the restructured wholesale power market and the failure of conventional power plants as being more of a threat to grid reliability.

Duke Energy said on May 2 that it told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) it plans to suspend its application for two proposed new nuclear units on its Harris site near New Hill in Wake County, North Carolina.

President Barack Obama said in a speech that the U.S. is likely to be a net exporter of natural gas by 2020, the Financial Times newspaper reported May 6. The newspaper said the president’s remarks, which were made in Costa Rica, are the strongest signal yet that the administration is leaning toward supporting export ventures.

Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and Itochu Corp., along with France’s GDF Suez, will build a 4,800-MW nuclear power plant at an estimated cost of $22 billion under an agreement signed May 3.

Five companies have filed letters of intent with North Dakota’s Public Service Commission (PSC) outlining proposals to start construction this year on wind farms that would add almost 686 MW of wind power capacity.

The California Independent System Operator (CAISO) said on May 6 that the continuing shutdown of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) heightens reliability concerns for areas of Southern California this summer.

A bipartisan group of senators have introduced legislation that would effectively shift responsibility for the disposition of spent fuel from U.S. nuclear power plants from the Department of Energy (DOE) to a new agency created solely to deal with nuclear waste issues.

Dominion subsidiary Virginia Power may choose to use a GE-Hitachi Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR) instead of a Mitsubishi Nuclear Energy Services (MNES) Advanced Pressurized Water Reactor (APWR) for a third nuclear unit proposed at its North Anna site in Virginia, the company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing on Friday.

ComEd’s smart grid program finally has some good news to share. In a progress report to the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) this week, the utility said that 479 distribution automation (DA) devices installed in the first year of the program resulted in 82,000 fewer customer power interruptions in 2012.