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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

Former TVA Nuke Official Banned by NRC

LCG, Nov. 3, 2000--The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued an order prohibiting Hiram J. Bass, the former measuring and test equipment program administrator at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Browns Ferry nuclear plant, from engaging in NRC-licensed activities for three years.

The agency said in a published statement that Bass had "deliberately failed to issue and/or disposition a number of nonconformance evaluations for instruments used at the Browns Ferry plant." The alleged derelictions came to light during investigations last year and earlier this year.

The NRC explained that instruments are routinely sent to a central TVA facility for calibrating and, when an instrument is found to be out of tolerance, a report is sent back to the plant where the program administrator issues a report to everyone who used the instrument so they can review the potential effects on plant components where the instruments may have been used.

Apparently, Bass did not always pass the information along. When questioned by both TVA and the NRC, he had no ready explanation and resigned from the taxpayer-owned utility in June of last year.

After his three-year ban is up, Bass will have to notify the NRC in writing if he becomes involved in licensed activities for another three years.

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