NEI Nuclear Notes

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the body that sets the rules for the competitive energy markets around the country, will soon take up a proposal from the Department of Energy (DOE) to adjust the pricing system, to ensure the survival of electricity generators that keep at least 90 days of fuel on hand. The department believes the current trend of unusually low power prices is pushing more of these plants, including nuclear reactors, into early retirement, and threatening the power grid’s resiliency and reliability. At the heart of the DOE’s proposal is the idea that everybody values resilience, but at the moment, nobody pays for it. In the electricity markets today, consumers pay for energy, and they pay for capacity – that is, the ability to make energy when needed. They pay for other services on the grid, like voltage control, that keep the electrons flowing smoothly. But there isn’t a mechanism to pay for resiliency, which the federal government defines as “the ability t...