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NRC Renews Operating Licenses for Constellation's Nuclear Reactors at Clinton and Dresden Facilities

LCG, December 16, 2025--The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) announced today that it has renewed the operating licenses of Constellation LLC’s Clinton Unit 1 in Clinton, Illinois, and Dresden Units 2 and 3, near Morris, Illinois, for an additional 20 years beyond the current expiration dates. The combined capacity of these three, Illinois-based nuclear units is 2,925 MW, and the operating license extension will enable the units to generate carbon-free power through about 2050.

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ERCOT Announces Organizational Changes to Promote Grid Reliability, Rapid Demand Growth, and Innovation

LCG, December 12, 2025--Today, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, Inc. (ERCOT) announced strategic organizational changes designed to accelerate innovation, strengthen grid reliability, and support the unprecedented growth in the demand for electricity across Texas. To meet these objectives, ERCOT created two new organizations: Interconnection and Grid Analysis, and Enterprise Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The two organizations will formally launch in January 2026.

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Industry News

Cal-ISO to Line Up Band-Aid Power for Next Summer

LCG, Oct. 5, 2000the governors of the California Independent System Operator yesterday sent the Cal-ISO staff in search of temporary peaking power to help the agency avoid the power crunches that threatened to force rolling blackouts all summer long this year.

Due to a strong economy fueled by a power-hungry high tech industry, and because regulatory fiddle-faddling has delayed the development of new power plants, the state's demand for electricity has outstripped its ability to produce power. It is estimated that Silicon Valley, in the southern San Francisco Bay Area, has a power demand that grows by 10 megawatts per day.

During this past summer, Cal-ISO was forced to declare an unprecedented 31 "stage two" power emergencies this past summer, and ask utilities to conserve power.

Yesterday's action by the ISO's Board of Governors will allow the purchase of up to $255 million worth of peaking generation. The projects under consideration amount to about 2,000 megawatts, after a preliminary evaluation based on environmental, economical and reliability considerations.

Patrick Dorinson, a spokesman for Cal-ISO, said "The board approved management to pursue agreements for temporary peaking power generators that would be used to maintain electric reliability during the summer months."

The ISO would have the right to call on the peaking power for up to 500 hours during the summer season, between June 1 and October 31, in exchange for a capacity payment. The ISO would require that the generation be scheduled in the forward markets as much as possible. An astonishing 25 percent of power purchases this past summer were made in the highly volatile spot market.

Owners of the units would be allowed to run the plants whenever they wished and participate in the markets on their own, so long as it did not interfere with Cal-ISO's ability to call on those plants when needed to ensure reliability.

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