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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

Puget Energy Says California Caps Affect Us, Too

LCG, Nov. 3, 2000--Puget Sound Energy Corp. has requested federal regulators to uniformly impose price caps on sellers of wholesale electricity in both the California and Pacific Northwest power markets.

Puget Energy said that price caps set only in California without the same applied in the Pacific Northwest would result in California buying Pacific Northwest power at artificially low prices when they needed it and Pacific Northwest customers paying higher costs when the need is reversed.

"Generally, we do not favor price caps since they do not allow a wholesale market to workcompetitively," said William A. Gaines, Puget Sound Energy vice president of energy supply. "But inthis case, the only thing worse than a price cap is a price cap on only part of the market."

Gaines' remarks came in anticipation of power price limits that could be imposed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in the wake of the agency's investigation into California's wholesale electricity market.

"While Puget Sound Energy strongly supports a competitive marketplace, any federal action thatwill alter the wholesale electric market in one region, needs to apply to all affected parts of thatregion," Gaines added.

In a complaint filed with FERC, Puget Energy pointed out that thousands of power transaction occur each month between California and the Northwest, and told the federal regulators that it is "unfair and unduly discriminatory to protect wholesale purchasers in California with a price cap and yet deny similar protection to wholesale purchasers in another part of essentially the same market, i.e. the Pacific Northwest."

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