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Minnesota PUC Approves Operations Extension for Xcel Energy's Prairie Island Nuclear Plant

LCG, August 15, 2025--Xcel Energy announced that the company received state approval yesterday from the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission to extend operations of the Prairie Island nuclear plant through the early 2050s. Prairie Island has two units that have a combined generating capacity of 1,100 MW. The units’ current operating licenses expire in 2033 and 2034.

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PGE Announces Addition of 475 MW of Battery Energy Storage Systems to Improve Grid Reliability and Costs

LCG, August 7, 2025--Portland General Electric (PGE) today announced the completion of three, four-hour lithium-ion utility-scale battery energy storage systems (BESS) in Oregon, adding 475 MW and more than 1.9 GWh of dispatchable capacity to serve the Portland metro area. Each of these BESS facilities can deliver power during peak demand or when other electric generating facilities are limited, which improves system flexibility, reliability and costs.

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Industry News

Mackinac Island in Lake Huron Without Power

LCG, July 25, 2000--Yachtsmen arriving at the end of a 350-mile race found Mackinac Island without power yesterday. The only things that connect the island in Lake Huron with mainland Michigan are boats and seven underwater cables and the cables, which provide electricity to the island, werent doing their job.

The cables began giving trouble on Saturday and gave up the ghost yesterday, just when the boats were about to start arriving at the end of the annual Chicago-Mackinac yacht race. Every hotel room on the island was booked for the arriving sailors and all the hotels could offer were cold showers and dark rooms.

Dan Musser, president of the Grand Hotel, said "The primary difficulty has been the lack of electric lights for the rooms and a shortage of hot water at times." He added that emergency generators and contingency plans had enabled the hotel to maintain essential guest services.

After 350 miles on the water, nothing is more essential than a hot shower.

Power was still out this morning, but crews from Edison Sault Electric Co., a subsidiary of Wisconsin Electric Corp., were making temporary splices on the cables and hoped to have electricity restored later today.

This morning, Edison Sault said "Current indications are that 5 of the 7 submarine cables running between the mainland at St. Ignace and Mackinac Island have experienced a failure of some sort. A minimum of three cables are needed in order to serve the Island."

With some additional repairs still to be made this morning, on-site Edison Sault personnel were hoping to try and energize at least one full set of cables later this morning thereby bringing electric power back to the Island, the company said.

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