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Minnesota PUC Approves Operations Extension for Xcel Energy's Prairie Island Nuclear Plant

LCG, August 15, 2025--Xcel Energy announced that the company received state approval yesterday from the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission to extend operations of the Prairie Island nuclear plant through the early 2050s. Prairie Island has two units that have a combined generating capacity of 1,100 MW. The units’ current operating licenses expire in 2033 and 2034.

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PGE Announces Addition of 475 MW of Battery Energy Storage Systems to Improve Grid Reliability and Costs

LCG, August 7, 2025--Portland General Electric (PGE) today announced the completion of three, four-hour lithium-ion utility-scale battery energy storage systems (BESS) in Oregon, adding 475 MW and more than 1.9 GWh of dispatchable capacity to serve the Portland metro area. Each of these BESS facilities can deliver power during peak demand or when other electric generating facilities are limited, which improves system flexibility, reliability and costs.

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Industry News

NRG Plans Fuel Switching from Coal to Gas to Avoid Plant Closures

LCG, June 26, 2013--NRG Energy (NRG) announced plans Monday to retrofit the 330-MW, New Castle power plant to switch from burning coal to natural gas. The 60-year old plant, located in Pennsylvania, had been scheduled to close by April 2015 due to environmental regulations associated with burning coal. With the fuel switching, the plant will be reactivated, and the anticipated commercial operating date (COD) for gas-fired operations is the summer of 2016.

NRG merged with GenOn Energy Inc. in December 2012, and GenOn had previously announced the April 2015 closing date last year.

NRG's East Region spokesperson stated, "The New Castle plant shutdown was announced because it would have required a substantial investment in environmental controls to continue to operate as a coal-burning facility. But we looked at it and decided it could be operated economically on natural gas. We won't have to install the extremely expensive controls that would have been required to continue operating on coal."

Following the reactivation, the New Castle plant is anticipated to change from a serving a base-load role to a peaking role, when electric demand peaks.

Other plants targeted by NRG to convert from coal to gas and reactivate are the 732-MW Avon Lake power plant in Ohio by the summer of 2016, as well as the 75-MW Dunkirk Unit 2 in New York.
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