Exelon executive urges Ohio lawmakers to adopt zero-emissions credit

Exelon Corp. Executive Vice President of Governmental and Regulatory Affairs and Public Policy Joseph Dominguez recently urged Ohio lawmakers to implement a zero-emissions program in testimony to the
Ohio Senate’s Public Utilities Committee.

The program, Dominguez said, would help prevent further shutdown of nuclear plants.

“As a nation, we are at a crossroads,” he said. “We are at risk of losing the very assets that most reliably produce electricity with zero carbon emissions, and help to ensure a stable and resilient electric grid.”

The Ohio legislature is currently considering two companion bills, House Bill 178 and Senate Bill 128, designed to value nuclear energy for its production of zero-emissions electricity.

Dominguez told the Committee that six nuclear reactors in five states have shut down and another seven nuclear reactors will shut down prematurely by 2019. Exelon recently announced it would shut down its Three Mile Island Generating Station in Pennsylvania absent policy reforms.

Dominquez said that these shutdowns occurred because electricity markets do not properly valuing the benefits that baseload electricity power plants provide. Zero-emissions credit programs like those enacted in Illinois and New York, he said, could resolve this issue.

“These markets do not address many environmental externalities, the need for fuel diversity, or concerns about grid resiliency arising from terrorism or operational catastrophes that threaten the natural gas infrastructure system that supplies gas-fired power plants,” Dominguez said. “As a consequence, traditional baseload resources are not valued for their contribution to fuel-mix diversity or for the increased resiliency they provide by virtue of having a 30-day supply of fuel at the plant.”