Nuke Subsidies Threaten Markets

The most recent State of the Market Report from Monitoring Analytics, PJM’s market monitor, says state mandated subsidies for nuclear power plants threaten the viability of competitive power markets.

The monitor states that subsidies “threaten the foundations of the PJM capacity market as well as the competitiveness of PJM markets overall.”

Subsidies “suppress incentives for investments in new, higher efficiency thermal plants but also suppress investment incentives for the next generation of energy supply technologies and energy efficiency technologies. These impacts are long lasting but difficult to quantify precisely,” writes the monitor.

Illinois and New York have created nuke subsidies. FirstEnergy is proposing a $300 million a year subsidy for its two old, uneconomic nuclear facilities.  3/14/2017