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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

Feds Issue Stiffer Pipeline Inspection Rules

LCG, Nov. 7, 2000--Pipeline explosions that claimed 14 lives have prompted the U.S. Transportation Department to issue new rules for periodic internal inspections of pipelines that transport natural gas, oil, gasoline and other petroleum products.

The new rules will require companies operating more than 500 miles of pipeline to check the condition of those pipelines from the inside and make any necessary repairs, all within seven years. The pipeline operators have their work cut out for them.

According to the Transportation Department, the pipeline network operating in the U.S. consists of approximately 1.9 million miles of natural gas and hazardous liquid pipelines operated by more than 3,000 companies.

Those companies will use something called a "smart pig" to check the innards of their systems. A smart pig is inserted into a pipeline and gets pushed through it by whatever the pipeline carries. As it makes its way through the conduit, it checks the condition of the pipe and reports back to the operators.

Similar proposals are included in legislation under consideration in Congress. In September, the Senate passed a pipeline safety bill, but the House has yet to act on it.

The regulatory and legislative action comes in the wake of a natural gas pipeline explosion that killed 11 members of two families this summer while they were camped along a river near Carlsbad, N.M. Last year, a gasoline pipeline explosion near Bellingham, Wash., claimed the lives of two children and a teenager.

The need for improved pipeline safety is not a new idea. Over the past 12 years, Congress has ordered the Transportation Department or the department's Office of Pipeline Safety to put into effect 49 regulations to improve safety of enhance the ability of regulators to enforce safety measures.

So far, 22 of those orders have not been carried out and some are 11 years past due.

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