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News
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LCG, September 30, 2025--Vistra Corp. announced yesterday that it will proceed with the next phase of its capital plan to support grid reliability in Texas. In 2024, Vistra identified over $1 billion worth of potential capital additions in generation capacity within the Texas ERCOT market by 2028 if market conditions were supportive. Now, with West Texas' growing power requirements, particularly the state's expanding oil and natural gas industries, Vistra reached a final investment decision and confirms it will build two new advanced natural gas-fired power units on-site at its Permian Basin Power Plant.
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LCG, September 24, 2025--Electric Reliability Council of Texas Inc. (ERCOT) yesterday announced its new initiative to increase its efforts to fully use and apply innovation and transformation through industry collaboration to best overcome the challenges and opportunities facing future grid operations. The new Grid Research, Innovation, and Transformation (GRIT) initiative will advance research and prototyping of emerging concepts and solutions to better understand the implications of rapid grid and technology evolution and position ERCOT to lead in the future energy landscape.
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Industry News
NRC Issues Operating License for Watts Bar Unit 2 to TVA
LCG, October 26, 2015-The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued on October 22 a 40-year Operating License to the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) for the Watts Bar Unit 2 nuclear reactor, located approximately 50 miles northeast of Chattanooga, Tennessee. In August TVA submitted documentation to the NRC notifying them that construction of the Watts Bar Unit 2 nuclear reactor was substantially complete.
Watts Bar Unit 2 is the first reactor the NRC has authorized to operate since 1996, when the agency issued the license for Watts Bar Unit 1. With the issuance of the license by the NRC, there are now 100 commercial reactors licensed to operate in the U.S. and able to generate carbon-free electricity.
The original construction on Watts Bar 2 started over 40 years ago in 1972. However, when load growth forecasts dropped in 1988, the unit was deferred. When Watts Bar 1 began commercial operations in May 1996, it became the last commercial nuclear unit in the U.S. to come on-line. Construction on Unit 2 resumed in 2007. The capacity of Unit 1 and Unit 2 are 1,100 MW and 1,150 MW, respectively, and both units are pressurized-water reactors.
TVA's Chief Nuclear Officer stated, "Readying to load fuel in Unit 2 will require several more weeks of demanding work and ongoing NRC inspections and reviews. Only when the required activities are complete and our readiness verified will we load the initial fuel into Unit 2."
The fuel load will be followed by several months of Power Ascension Testing-an extension of pre-operation testing on those systems that require fuel in the core in order to be tested. TVA expects the plant to be declared a commercial reactor for full-scale operation by next June, ahead of the peak summer months.
The director of the NRC's Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation stated, "After devoting more than 200,000 hours over eight years conducting extensive safety reviews and inspections, we're satisfied Unit 2 is safe to operate and we've issued TVA the operating license. We already monitor Unit 1's performance through our Reactor Oversight Process, which is used at all reactor sites throughout the country, and we're adding Unit 2 to that system. Staff from our Region II office in Atlanta will ensure TVA meets its requirements as it loads fuel into Unit 2 and runs tests before the unit starts generating electricity."
The NRC noted that Watts Bar is the first site to comply with the agency's Fukushima-related Orders on Mitigation Strategies and Spent Fuel Pool Instrumentation. The NRC has two Resident Inspectors at Watts Bar for day-to-day oversight of site activities, and an additional Resident Inspector for continued oversight of start-up activities at Unit 2.
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UPLAN-NPM
The Locational Marginal Price Model (LMP) Network Power Model
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UPLAN-ACE
Day Ahead and Real Time Market Simulation
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UPLAN-G
The Gas Procurement and Competitive Analysis System
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PLATO
Database of Plants, Loads, Assets, Transmission...
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