Exelon to close Clinton and Quad Cities nuclear plantsBy Corilyn Shropshire, Chicago Tribune
June 02--Exelon said Thursday it will move ahead with plans to shutter the Clinton and Quad Cities nuclear plants, blaming the lack of progress on Illinois energy legislation. The company, the parent of Chicago-area utilities provider ComEd, said the Clinton Power Station will close June 1, 2017, and the Quad Cities Generating Station in Cordova will close June 1, 2018. Both plants, the company said, have lost a combined $800 million in the past seven years, despite being "two of the best-performing plants," the company said in a statement. The move comes after the Illinois General Assembly adjourned earlier this week without acting on the legislation known as the Next Generation Energy Plan, which Exelon said would have helped save the nuclear plants. "We have worked for several years to find a sustainable path forward
in consultation with federal regulators, market operators, state
policymakers, plant community leaders, labor and business leaders as
well as environmental groups and other stakeholders," said CEO Last fall, Exelon said it had delayed the decision to close the Clinton facility for one year and planned to submit the Illinois plant into a power auction to raise additional revenue. The company said it expects the plant closings to have a significant economic impact on the regions in which they operate. It said that together both plants support roughly 4,200 direct and indirect jobs, including 700 workers at Clinton and 800 workers at Quad Cities, and produce more than $1.2 billion in economic activity annually. ___ (c)2016 the Chicago Tribune Visit the Chicago Tribune at www.chicagotribune.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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