nuclear-news

Exelon tries (unsuccessfully) to blame wind energy for nuclear power’s commercial failures

Exelon Still Blaming Wind PTC For Nuclear Challenges, Exelon Still Wrong About It Think Progress, By Adam James, Guest Blogger on Jun 27, 2013 Exelon recently shelved plans to expand nuclear capacity at their LaSalle and Limerick plants, taking a $100 million hit and once again reverting to the tired old strategy of blaming subsidized wind. The specific target of their ire is the Production Tax Credit (PTC). For wind, that is, not the one that they happily collect for nuclear.

Exelon is (again) wrong about the PTC, as anyone who read our last post already knows.

First, let’s look at the big picture. Wind power has been a tremendous boon for North America. Costs have fallen 90 percent since 1992, the domestic content of wind turbines has dramatically risen, and 75,000 people are employed in the industry. This growth is directly tied to the continued extension of the Production Tax Credit. Wind power is cheap and carbon free, making it good for consumers and the climate alike.

However, Exelon has decided that wind power is bad for their business. The argument they’ve been making is that because wind can collect tax credits for producing energy at times when demand for electricity is very low, electricity prices become negative as the generator pays consumers to take electricity. This hurts their other generators, like nuclear plants, who then have to sell at a loss. Buried in the story about Limerick and LaSalle is a very important point though: negative prices didn’t occur once in springtime.

We debunked this tale before, but I’ll recap the highlights here:……http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/06/27/2210711/exelon-still-blaming-wind-ptc-for-nuclear-challenges-exelon-still-wrong-about-it/?mobile=nc

June 28, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | renewable, spinbuster, USA