nuclear-news

 state Attorney General Pam Bondi joined a growing chorus of state leaders urging the PSC to refund to ratepayers money they paid for equipment for a nuclear plant. Neither the plant nor the equipment was ever built.

In a letter to commission Chairman Art Graham, Bondi said, “I am writing to express my deep concerns over the Public Service Commission . . . staff’s recent recommendation to side with Duke Energy to withhold $54 million in credits rightfully due to its customers.”

Today’s “meeting of the Commission presents an opportunity to do what is in the best interest of those customers who have been shouldering the burden of the $54 million for a nuclear plant project that will never come to fruition,” Bondi wrote.

Duke, the state’s second largest investor owned utility, had expected to have more than 3,000 megawatts of power from the upgrades to the Crystal River nuclear power plant in Citrus County and construction of a pair of new reactors in Levy County.

But a botched upgrade of the Crystal River facility led Duke to permanently close the plant and soaring costs of the Levy nuclear plant led the utility to cancel that project.

The two nuclear projects’ costs to Duke ratepayers reached $3.2 billion, though customers will never receive a kilowatt of power from the plants for that money.

The PSC vote to order the $54 million refund means customers will stop paying for expenses related to the Levy project by mid 2015. Without that order, payments of $3.45 a month for the average residential customer would have run through early 2016.

An eight-year-old state law enabled Duke to collect the money in advance for the Levy project. The law, the Nuclear Cost Recovery Clause, or so-called “nuclear advance fee,” allows Florida utilities to collect money from their customers for nuclear projects before they begin producing power.

Duke is suing its former contractor, Westinghouse Electric Co., in federal court in North Carolina to reclaim the $54 million because the company never produced the equipment after receiving the money. Westinghouse is counter-suing Duke for $512 million for canceling the contract for the Levy project. http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/bondi-urges-psc-to-order-duke-to-refund-54-million-for-nuclear-equipment/2200407