Overview

Accelerated decommissioning

Benefits and protections

In May 2019, Duke Energy announced a plan to decommission the Crystal River Nuclear Plant by 2027 instead of 2074 and to contract with Accelerated Decommissioning Partners, a joint venture between NorthStar Group Services and Orano USA, to perform the work.Decommissioning a nuclear plant is highly regulated and involves removing, packaging and shipping radioactive materials, such as the reactor vessel, to a licensed facility and then demolishing buildings.Twenty-four-hour security, emergency response and radiological and environmental monitoring programs continue during and after decommissioning.In April 2020, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the license transfer from Duke Energy to Accelerated Decommissioning Partners. In August, the Florida Public Service Commission also approved the transaction, marking the final regulatory approval needed to close the transaction in October.Decommissioning work is expected to start in 2020 and will be completed in 2027 – decades sooner than originally planned. Watch this video to learn more about the decommissioning process.

Accelerating the nuclear plant’s decommissioning has several benefits.



The fixed-price contract locks in today’s prices, has no impact on customer bills, provides Duke Energy customers financial protection and transfers cost-and-schedule risks to Accelerated Decommissioning Partners.



Accelerating the decommissioning also allows for faster restoration and redevelopment of the nuclear plant property for Duke Energy’s reuse one day and a potential opportunity to return most of the unused trust fund dollars back to customers sooner than the 60-year decommissioning model.

Why now?

Contract terms

Decommissioning decision

Plant history The Crystal River Nuclear Plant, known as CR3, operated from 1977 to 2009. The plant produced about 860 megawatts of clean energy, helping to serve millions of Floridians.



The nuclear plant is located at the 5,100-acre Crystal River Energy Complex, home to the new Citrus Combined Cycle Station, two operating coal-fired units, two retired coal-fired units and a mariculture center that cultivates and then releases fish into the Gulf of Mexico.

Duke Energy is pursuing accelerated decommissioning for two reasons.First, the trust fund that pays for the decommissioning is currently sufficient to accelerate the plant's decommissioning without increasing customer bills.Second, Duke Energy has cost-effectively completed the initial phase of decommissioning, and increased competition in the industry has lowered decommissioning costs, making the accelerated model financially feasible.If the contract closes in October, as expected, Duke Energy will remain the Nuclear Regulatory Commission-licensed owner of the nuclear plant, property and equipment (except the dry cask storage facility assets) and retain ownership and control of the trust fund that pays for the decommissioning. Duke Energy will continue to have access to the site and will pay Accelerated Decommissioning Partners only for work completed.Accelerated Decommissioning Partners will become the Nuclear Regulatory Commission-licensed operator responsible for decommissioning the plant and operating and maintaining the on-site dry cask storage facility that houses the used nuclear fuel assemblies. Accelerated Decommissioning Partners will also acquire the title to the nuclear plant’s used nuclear fuel assemblies and rights to seek reimbursement from the U.S. Department of Energy for spent fuel management costs.A dry cask storage facility is self-contained and stores used nuclear fuel assemblies in steel canisters housed in large concrete structures without power supplies, cooling water, pumps or motors. The system is safe and licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.Owning the dry cask storage system assets closely aligns with Accelerated Decommissioning Partners' business strategy, and selling these assets allows Duke Energy to transfer all aspects of used fuel management, including operating and maintenance costs, to Accelerated Decommissioning Partners.Duke Energy is comfortable selling the dry cask storage system assets because all owners of nuclear plants follow the same regulations. Accelerated Decommissioning Partners will be required to implement Nuclear Regulatory Commission license requirements in the same way Duke Energy implements these requirements.On Feb. 5, 2013, Duke Energy announced its decision to retire the nuclear plant instead of pursuing a first-of-its-kind repair to the plant's containment building.While replacing two 500-ton steam generators during a scheduled maintenance and refueling outage in 2009, engineers discovered a delamination, or separation of concrete, within the containment building that surrounds the reactor vessel. Though crews successfully repaired the damage, additional concrete separations were discovered in two different areas of the containment building in 2011.The company spent five years and tens of thousands of hours carefully planning the steam generator replacement project and followed industry-accepted procedures and models. Analysis showed that the separations of concrete could not have been predicted.