Holtec is working on what could be the first startup of a closed nuclear power plant in the United States with the Palisades Nuclear Plant in Covert Township, Michigan. That effort got a boost on March 27 as the US Department of Energy’s Office of Loan Programs. offered Holtec Palisades LLC a conditional loan guarantee of up to $1.52 billion for the project.
The 800 MW Palisades Nuclear Power Plant, located on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, ceased operations in May 2022 and was acquired by Holtec the following month, initially saying it would decommission the facility.
However, the company and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer announced later that year that they wanted to reopen the facility. Michigan officials have already budgeted $150 million to restart the plant.
Last year, Holtec began the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission process to reauthorize power operations at the plant. The company also plans to use the site for the first two of its small modular reactor units, which could potentially double the site’s capacity, although DOE officials note that the work cannot be funded under the guarantee of the recently announced loan.
Holtec has already reached multi-decade power purchase agreements with a pair of not-for-profit rural electric cooperatives, Wolverine Power Cooperative and Hoosier Energy, for Palisades’ production.
“The Palisades repowering will restore safe and permanent generation to hundreds of thousands of homes, businesses and manufacturers,” Holtec President and CEO Kris Singh said in a statement. “It also confers the environmental and public health benefits of zero-emissions generation, hundreds of well-paying local jobs with a strong unionized workforce, economic growth and the social benefits of a strong community partner.”
The project is the first to be offered a conditional commitment through DOE’s Energy Infrastructure Reinvestment Program funded by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. The program focuses on projects that reuse closed energy infrastructure or that enable that the energy infrastructure reduces air pollution.
Reopening the Palisades plant is expected to avoid 4.47 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year over the 25 years of planned operations, according to the DOE.
The Biden administration has turned to nuclear power as one of the sources that will help it achieve its goals of achieving a 100% clean electricity grid by 2035 and a net-zero emissions economy by 2050. As Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm has said, ENR previously reported. The United States must add 200 GW of nuclear power to meet the COP28 climate change summit goal of tripling its nuclear capacity as part of efforts to phase out the use of fossil fuels. Working toward these goals, the nuclear industry has looked to extend the operational life of existing nuclear plants such as Diablo Canyon in California and use small modular reactors to expand the capacity of existing nuclear sites.
“Nuclear power is our largest source of carbon-free electricity, directly supporting 100,000 jobs across the country and hundreds of thousands more indirectly,” Granholm said in a statement.
Because the plant’s infrastructure is largely already in place, DOE officials say the project would not involve major construction. But the project would still require renovation, rebuilding and replacement of existing equipment, as well as inspections and testing.
Holtec expects to submit the remaining NRC license applications needed for Palisades this spring. The company has said the plant could be restarted by the end of 2025, pending approvals, and aims to have the first small modular reactor operational by the mid-2030s.
