It’s been more than three years since the former Palisades Nuclear Power Plant was shut down and the decommissioning process began.
A lot has changed since the initial closure, with a lengthy effort to repower the Covert Township plant which has included various public hearings with a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission panel, hundreds of hirings, ongoing inspections and securing funds from the federal and state governments. Now, Holtec International, the operator of the power plant, is close to making history.
“This is the first time a nuclear plant has gone into decommissioning and been brought back into operations,” said Nick Culp, senior manager of government affairs and communications at Holtec. “From a regularity standpoint, that is something that’s never been done before either. This was not a solo act from Holtec. We’ve had support within the industry and the support we’ve received from federal, state and local governments.”
One of the latest hurdles came in late July, when the NRC reauthorized power operations for the Palisades plant. With this announcement, Palisades was allowed to transition back to operational status from decommissioning – enabling Holtec to restart the plant with new nuclear fuel after meeting various conditions, inspections and testing requirements.
Culp said the plant is on track and planning for a restart by the end of this year.
“We need to complete all of our major projects that are a work in progress,” he said. “So far, our restart remains on schedule and below budget. All plant systems and equipment need to be put in place and all federal requirements need to be met.”
With there being three months left in the calendar year, Culp said a “safe, long-term operation” is the first priority.
“The work needs to be done correctly and make sure everything is back in place before that can happen. We have our restart schedule, but the plant’s safety and reliability is what we’re focused on with that restart.”
While the repowering effort is not as simple as flipping a switch, Culp said they are focused on the final inspections, before there’s testing that’s done at multiple levels prior to going fully online.
For the nuclear power plant that has been dormant for three-plus years, he said there’s a gradual onramp that must follow a standard process.
“We have brought back our emergency program and have 12-hour shifts for key personnel,” he said. “Today, we are operating and behaving as if we are a power plant.”
Palisades workers are in the process of reassembling their turbine. One of the two low-pressure turbine rotators was installed last week, while the next one will be added within the next two weeks.
Recent work included a nose-to-tail inspection on that system and a lot of replacements, Culp said. On the non-nuclear side of the plant, workers are undergoing a deep cleaning of secondary generators.
Culp said they have also received fuel that was used in two previous operating cycles.
“One of the first things we had to do was procure new fuel,” he said. “Our fuel design is unique in the industry.”
In the early efforts of repowering Palisades, Holtec turned to the NRC, which formed a Nuclear Restart Panel to look into what this process would entail.
Over the course of 20 public meetings, the panel reviewed information and sent in feedback.
“We proposed a regulatory path to restart within the NRC’s framework,” Culp said. “When Holtec became the operator of Palisades, there were restrictions in place. We brought back all of those things in the regulatory process, which was subject to lengthy reviews and public meetings.”
According to Culp, Southwest Michigan as a whole is already seeing the direct economic impact.
The plant is staffed with 600 full-time employees – compared to the 200 workers they had to decommission the plant in June of 2022.
Restaffing and retraining has been a big part of getting the plant running again. The operations department is up and running, while Holtec has also set a process for training a new plant operator – which Culp said takes about 18 months.
“We got our training accreditation back because we know there will be attrition and retirements over time,” he said. “We graduated a new class of operators earlier this summer. We now have a second class of initial licensed operators graduating next year and have started a third operators class for continuity purposes.”
Palisades currently has more than 1,200 contractors and vendors through 15 labor unions, as well as long-term suppliers who are on site providing specialty work who have previously worked at the Covert Township plant.
Planting roots
Construction on the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant began in the late 1960s, and took four years to be completed.
Consumers Energy ran the plant until 2007, when they went to market and sold the plant to Entergy Corp. At the time, it was a 15-year power purchase agreement, which meant a utility partner would buy all energy produced at Palisades at an agreed-upon price through 2022.
Culp said Palisades was essentially operating on a wholesale market with no guaranteed rate for return – as a free market plant.
In 2018, Entergy and Holtec made a joint announcement that at the end of its power agreement in 2022, the asset would be transferred to Holtec for accelerated decommissioning on an 18-year timeline.
From 2018 and 2022, Culp said Holtec officials consistently heard from state and federal leaders about keeping Palisades online.
“After the ownership transfer took place, we were contacted from the governor’s office and the U.S. Department of Energy about keeping it online,” Culp said.
After Holtec explored the process, they submitted for a $1.52 billion federal loan. In the next 18 months, Culp said they went through a due diligence process from a legal, financial and environmental standpoint.
“The thorough vetting process coincided with a financial contribution from the state of Michigan,” Culp said.
Then came two important dominos: a pact was announced for a multi-decade partnership with power cooperatives in the summer of 2023 and the reauthorization of power operations by the NRC in July.
At the top of Holtec’s list of key milestones they wish to meet is the overall impact the plant’s return will be to the industry and surrounding areas.
“As far as the impact to Covert Township, it has a multiplying effect for restaurants and the hospitality industry,” Culp said. “We have folks who work at the site, coming in from South Haven, Covert Township and all over Van Buren (County). We’ll have folks coming in from over an hour away. The economic impact is fairly spread out.”
Once online, Palisades is expected to add 800 megawatts of energy to Michigan’s electric grid.
“We know looking toward the future of discussions on AI and data storage centers, this would need a tremendous amount of energy demand,” Culp added. “Data centers will place a tremendous demand on base load energy.”
