Dive Brief:

• Entergy is pushing for market changes to help keep its 688-MW Pilgrim nuclear plant in Massachusetts economically viable.
• The Pilgrim plant is a “marginal unit” that fails to meet the company's profit requirements, according to a company official.
• ISO New England, for example, is considering penalizing plants that don't deliver power when demand is high while rewarding generators that deliver power during those periods. Entergy supports the proposal as long as plants that are offline for reasons outside of their control aren't penalized.
• Meanwhile, a citizens group is trying to stop Entergy's plans for building a dry-cask storage facility to store the Pilgrim plant's spent fuel. The storage project is already underway.

Dive Insight:

Nuclear plants are under pressure. Entergy is retiring its Vermont Yankee plant. Exelon has said it may shut several of its nuclear plants. Dominion Resources closed its Kewaunee plant in Wisconsin last year because it was unprofitable. Grid operators, however, appear to be concerned that too many large coal or nuclear plant retirements could lead to grid reliability problems. Look for them to propose ways to keep some of these plants open longer.