California Plans for SONGS-Free Summer of 2013 as Majority Owner Struggles to Bring Nuclear Plant Back Online

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Written by John Egan for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Southern California Edison (SCE) (Rosemead, California), the operator and majority owner of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), has submitted a plan to restart that plant's long-idled Unit 2 to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) (Rockville, Maryland). In the coming weeks, that plan will be discussed at open house meetings held throughout Southern California. As yet, there is no restart plan for SONGS' more seriously damaged Unit 3.

SCE, a unit of Edison International (NYSE:EIX) (Rosemead, California), owns 78% of SONGS. San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) (San Diego, California), a unit of Sempra Energy (NYSE:SRE) (San Diego, California), owns 20%, while the City of Riverside, California, owns the remaining 2%.

SONGS units 2 and 3 are pressurized water reactors (PWRs). Both have been out of service since January 2012. Unit 2 was taken out of service January 9, 2012, for a planned outage. Then, on January 31, Unit 3 was shut down after a tube carrying radioactive water broke, releasing traces of radiation that officials said posed no danger to workers or neighbors. Following that leak, officials took a closer look at Unit 2 and discovered unexpected, in some cases extensive, wear on steam tubes. Unit 3 is the more damaged of the two units. SONGS Unit 1 was closed in 1992.

Officials have struggled to explain the faulty steam tubes, given that SCE replaced the steam generators in units 2 and 3 at a cost of about $670 million in 2009 and 2010. For more on the causes of the shutdown, see April 2, 2012, article - San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station Shutdown: "Just the Facts, Ma'am".

"Safety is our top priority, and after conducting more than 170,000 inspections to understand and prevent the problem, and confirming the corrective actions we have taken to solve the problem with top experts from around the world, we have concluded that Unit 2 at San Onofre can be operated safely and within industry norms," said Ron Litzinger, president of SCE, in a statement last month that accompanied the restart plan. "When implemented, this plan will get San Onofre Unit 2 back to providing reliable and clean energy to Southern Californians."

SCE's restart calls for running SONGS Unit 2 at about 70% of its rated capacity of 1,172 megawatts (MW) for about five months, after which the unit would be brought down and inspected "to ensure the continued structural integrity of the tubes, to measure tube wear and to confirm that the solutions are working," the utility said in its October 4 statement. There is no specific restart date, as the plan must first be approved by the NRC. In the coming weeks, a series of open houses will be held in Southern California to hear the public's response to the plan.

There is no restart plan for Unit 3, which has different and more significant steam tube damage than Unit 2. SCE said Unit 3 may not be able to be restarted without extensive repairs. It removed fuel from that unit in September, signaling a prolonged outage. "Because the steam generator tube wear is more significant in Unit 3 than in Unit 2, SCE does not foresee Unit 3 coming back online in the near future," the utility said in a statement, announcing it would remove the fuel from Unit 3 and place that unit in a "longer-term outage mode."

It could take months, possibly years, for the NRC to rule on the Unit 2 restart plan. NRC officials have conceded their review of the plan will take months. And environmental activists are contending that the complex restart proposal for Unit 2 requires an amendment to the plant's operating license, a process that could take as long as two years to complete. The NRC is considering the activists' arguments but has not yet ruled on them.

"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has several months of work ahead of it before any decision can be made," NRC Regional Administrator Elmo Collins told reporters during an October news conference. "The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will not grant approval for the resumption of power operation unless we have confidence that the facility can be operated safely." It's "an open question" if a license amendment is needed, Reid added. "I'm not saying yes or no."

Meanwhile, late last month, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) (San Francisco, California), opened an investigation into the financial implications of SONGS' outage. The investigation, which could take up to 18 months to complete, will probe whether customers are due a refund in their rates for the nuclear plant's prolonged outage. Through the end of September, SCE estimated it spent more than $300 million to investigate the problems at SONGS and purchase replacement power, according to a regulatory filing by its SCE's parent, Edison International. Replacement power costs about $221 million, while inspection and repair costs totaled about $96 million, according to the filing.

If recent history is any guide, the public meetings to review SCE's Unit 2 restart plan may draw large and noisy crowds. A few weeks ago, an NRC public meeting to discuss the restart plan drew a crowd estimated at more than 800 people. A late October public meeting held by SCE in Vista, California, reportedly drew about 60 attendees. Another public meeting is scheduled for November 27 in San Clemente.

The California Independent System Operator Corporation (ISO) (Folsom, California), the agency operating the state's electric grid, has started taking steps to meet summer 2013 electric demand, should SONGS Unit 2 not return to service by then.

The ISO's top recommendation is turning two units at the Huntington Beach Power Station into synchronous condensers. Units 3 and 4 at Huntington Beach met electric demand this past summer, but its air emissions credits expired last month. By turning the generators into synchronous condensers, the units provide megavars for voltage support, rather than megawatts of electricity. Therefore, no new air emissions credits would be needed for units 3 and 4.

As the ISO explained in a statement, synchronous condensers act like spinning flywheels that provide voltage support which is dynamically adjusted to grid conditions. Rather than megawatts of electricity, Huntington Beach units 3 and 4 would produce megavars that would push megawatts through the grid, much like water pressure helps push water through a hose.

And if SONGS doesn't return to service by 2014, SCE has said that new generation and transmission will be needed to keep the lights on in Southern California.

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