Connecticut regulators approved 10-year power purchase agreements between Dominion Energy Inc. and the state's two major electric distribution utilities — Eversource Energy subsidiary Connecticut Light and Power Co. and Avangrid Inc. subsidiary United Illuminating Co. — for the output of Dominion's Millstone nuclear plant.
In a second interim decision issued Sept. 18, the Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority, or PURA, gave its permission for the utilities to enter into contracts at above-market prices for the output of the approximately 2,100-MW nuclear facility in New London County, Conn., as a means of ensuring continued plant operations.
Barring failure by the utilities and Dominion to file compliance forms by Sept. 28, PURA's decision marks the last regulatory hurdle for the Millstone power purchase agreements. As agreed in a deal struck in March between Dominion and the utilities, the power supply contracts are for 9 million MWh of emissions-free power per year. The 2018 net generation for Millstone was approximately 16.9 million MWh, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data.
"Approving the contract ensures that for at least the next decade, Millstone will continue to power 2.1 million homes with around-the-clock, carbon-free electricity while providing more than $1.5 billion of annual economic benefits to Connecticut," Paul Koonce, president and CEO of Dominion's Power Generation Group, said in a statement.
Koonce also thanked the state Legislature and Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat, for facilitating the process behind the contracts.
The power purchase agreements stem from a 2017 state law that directed state agencies to allow Millstone to compete for a long-term "zero-carbon" power supply contract. The state law, and a resulting request for proposals, sought to stave off Dominion's threatened early retirement of Millstone and safeguard its emissions-free baseload power by shoring up its economics in an electricity market awash with cheap natural gas supplies. The plant operates in the ISO New England market.
In December 2018, the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection awarded Millstone the 10-year contract.
Dominion owns just over 96% of the two-unit Millstone facility, whose first unit began operating in 1975.
