OPPD Shut Down Junk Plant Fort Calhoun and Save $400 Million Dollars?

This is how deep in the hole the rest of the nuclear industry is.

Closing Fort Calhoun nuclear plant helps OPPD avoid rate hike in ’17

By Cole Epley / World-Herald staff writer
Cole Epley

Closing its lone nuclear plant helped the Omaha Public Power District head off a rate hike that would have resulted in an average bill increase of 2.5 percent for residential ratepayers in 2017.

The Omaha electric utility’s board on Thursday approved a recalculation of a portion of rates that accounts for cost changes related to the closure of the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant and the addition of 400 megawatts of wind power from a massive wind farm in Holt County.

OPPD directors also approved a $1.13 billion 2017 budget that, among other things, would replenish the utility’s so-called rate stabilization account to $50 million, the account’s intended full amount.

The fund is used for stemming rate hikes. It was depleted to $16 million from a high of $41 million in 2015 as utility officials sought to plug a budget shortfall brought on by lower income from excess energy sales, lower demand and increasing costs at the Fort Calhoun nuclear plant.

The facility 15 miles north of Omaha is now shut down and in early stages of decommissioning. That project could cost as much as $1.9 billion, but OPPD will have a better grasp on the estimated cost when it completes a more detailed study of the years-long project by the end of January.

OPPD has saved about $388 million for those costs already, and now that the plant is closed, the district will put an additional $147.5 million into designated trust funds for decommissioning…