San Onofre plant closure not expected to affect local customers
Southern California Edison’s decision today topermanently pull the plug on its San Onofre nuclear power plant is not expectedto have much of an impact on Riverside Public Utilities customers, cityofficials said.
RPU has a 1.79 percent stake in the San Onofre facility, whichcomplemented the city’s renewable — or “green” — energy portfolio, butofficials do not anticipate the loss of electrical supply from the OrangeCounty plant would create disruptions.
“We do not believe this decision by SCE will have a significant impacton rates or our power supply,” said RPU General Manager David Wright.
He noted that SCE did not give the city any advance notice of plans topermanently shutter the San Diego County seaside plant, which sits just offInterstate 5 near San Clemente. However, according to Wright, the city had beenengaged in contingency planning in case the San Onofre units were retired.
San Diego Gas & Electric also have a small ownership stake in the plant.
Ted Craver, chairman and CEO of Edison International, SCE’s corporateparent, cited uncertainty about when the two units at the plant, which weretaken offline because of technical issues, would be allowed to restart. Thecompany also said the administrative process to gain regulatory approval torestart could have lasted more than a year, entailing a cost too great to bear.
The plant’s two reactor units, referred to as Unit 2 and Unit 3, havebeen offline since early 2012. Unit 1 was in operation from 1968 to 1992, whenit was shut down over fears it could not withstand a major earthquake.
Unit 2 was taken out of service Jan. 9, 2012, for planned routinemaintenance, while Unit 3 was shut down abruptly on Jan. 31, 2012, after asmall leak of radioactive steam occurred. No one was hurt, but both reactorswere kept offline while the issue was investigated.
Edison executives would later reveal the leak was caused by prematurewearing of steam pressure tubes in the reactors.
Edison spent months trying to gain permission from the NuclearRegulatory Commission to restart one unit at 70 percent power for five monthsas a test run.
Edison said today it would pursue damages from Mitsubishi HeavyIndustries of Japan, the company that supplied the replacement steam generatorsthat wore out sooner than expected.
At its peak, the plant supplied power to 1.4 million households that nowreceive energy from other sources via the grid, according to Edison.
