PSEG Starving Funding For Troubled Hope Creek and Salem

PSEG Canceling Nuclear Plant Spending Due to Stalled Bailout 

The state's biggest utility says it's canceling funding for capital projects at a nuclear plant because of a stalled legislative effort to financially rescue the state's nuclear industry.

March 2, 2018, at 2:49 p.m.

PSEG, Exelon cancel capital projects at Salem nuke after legislation stalls

Public Service Enterprise Group and Exelon Corp. have axed multiple capital projects at their jointly-owned Salem nuclear plant after the New Jersey legislature failed to pass a bill to support the state's nuclear generation.

The bill would have supported PSEG's nuclear plants but the legislation was shelved in the Senate. The subsidies would have added about $350 million annually over 10 years, to the plants' revenue

The spending would have included New Jersey gets about 40% of its electricity from nuclear generation, but owners of the state's plants now say they will not make further investments beyond requirements from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other regulations. 

The decision means PSEG will stop working to make the plants more efficient and reliable. NJ.com frames it as a "threat" from generation owners of "dirtier air, higher bills," if subsidies are not provided.

In a Form 8-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, PSEG said that "funding of these projects may be restored when and if legislation is enacted in New Jersey that sufficiently values the attributes of nuclear generation and Salem benefits from such legislation."…

The bill included both efficiency and solar initiatives, along with hundreds of millions in support for nuclear