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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

PG&E Asks for Court Backing on Power Costs

LCG, Nov. 9, 2000--Pacific Gas & Electric Co. said yesterday it had asked the federal district court in San Francisco for a declaration that it has the right to recover more than $3 billion in uncollected power costs.

PG&E said it was "continuing to work" with the California Public Utilities Commission and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to find a way out of the state's wholesale electricity market problems, but wanted court assurance that it could get back money it paid for power it was obliged to deliver to its customers.

Roger Peters, senior vice president and PG&E general counsel, summed the matter up:

"We were told to sell our power plants, ordered to buy all our power to serve our customers from the Power Exchange, ordered to accept all costs from the Independent System Operator, and ordered toallow any customer to switch back and forth between utilities and other energy service providers," Peters said.

"We do not make any 'mark-up' or profit on the cost of wholesale power. In fact, we have taken every step the state would allow to try to keep power costs down," he continued. "It may seem attractive, to some, to say that these costs now should not be included in customer rates, but it is a direct violation of law."

The company said it is also asking FERC to provide regulatory relief from the "unjust and unreasonable" power prices charged by the independent power generators, including price caps for future sales, as well as refunds of any unreasonable prices.

PG&E said it will present a rate stabilization plan in November, to take effect at the end of its temporary rate freeze, to allow collection of unrecovered electricity costs over time while also protecting its customers from price spikes.

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