Exelon Generation on Feb. 2 said that the Oyster Creek Generating Station, a nuclear power plant in New Jersey, will permanently shut down in October 2018, at the end of its current operating cycle.
As part of an agreement with the state of New Jersey, Exelon was required to close Oyster Creek by December 2019. Exelon in 2010 said the company would operate the plant until 2019.
The decision to shut down Oyster Creek in October of this year will help Exelon “better manage resources as fuel and maintenance costs continue to rise amid historically low power prices,” Exelon Generation said in a news release.
In advance of the shutdown, Exelon Generation said it will be working closely with local officials, state agencies, elected representatives and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to plan for long-term decommissioning.
Exelon Generation also said that shutdown timeline will give Oyster Creek employees “a better opportunity to pursue open positions across the Exelon family of companies.” The company also pledged to offer a position elsewhere in Exelon to every employee that wishes to stay with the company.
Oyster Creek is located about 60 miles east of Philadelphia in Ocean County, N.J. The plant produces 636 net megawatts of electricity at full power.
Exelon in 2017 announced plans to retire Three Mile Island nuclear plant
Exelon Corp. in May 2017 said it would retire its 837-MW Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania on or about Sept. 30, 2019, "absent needed policy reforms."
Exelon's announcement came just days after the Three Mile Island plant and a separate Exelon nuclear plant failed to clear a PJM Interconnection capacity auction.
Exelon nuclear plants in Illinois
In 2016, Exelon said it planned to close two nuclear plants in Illinois. Exelon said at the time that it intended to retire its 1,069-MW Clinton power station in Clinton, Illinois, on June 1, 2017, and the 1,871-MW Quad Cities generating station in Cordova, Illinois, on June 1, 2018.
The plants had been hurt by sharp declines in revenue because of low wholesale power prices, capacity auction results, and regulatory and policy frameworks that fail to fairly pay nuclear plants for their reliability and carbon-free emissions aspects, Exelon said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
But in December of that year, Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner signed a broad energy bill that will keep Quad Cities and Clinton operating for several years.
The Clinton and Quad Cities plants “are now planned to operate for at least another 10 years as a result of the legislation,” Exelon said at the time.
Exelon purchased nuclear plant from Entergy
In March 2017, Exelon Generation assumed ownership and management of operations of the James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant in Scriba, N.Y.
Exelon purchased the 838-megawatt nuclear plant from investor-owned Entergy Corporation.
