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Holtec Achieves Milestone towards Restarting Palisades Nuclear Facility and Advances Plans to Build Two SMRs at Palisades Site

LCG, March 31, 2026--Holtec International yesterday announced that it successfully completed a milestone test necessary to return Holtec's Palisades Nuclear Generating Station to service. The 805-MW pressurized water reactor (PWR) is located in Michigan and was shut down by Entergy in May 2022. Holtec acquired the facility in June 2022 and has pursued a path to return the plant to service.

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Arbor Signs Agreement with GridMarket for 5 GW of Baseload Power

LCG, March 25, 2026--Arbor Energy today announced an agreement with GridMarket, an energy and infrastructure project facilitator, to deliver up to 5 GW of zero-emission power starting in 2029. GridMarket supports large energy users, including data centers, manufacturers, and logistics providers, with securing reliable and cost-effective power.

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Industry News

California Utilities Tottering on Brink of Bankruptcy

LCG, Dec. 14, 2000--California's two largest utilities acknowledged yesterday that they are flirting with bankruptcy and may soon not have enough money to pay for electricity which they deliver to their retail distribution customers.

"We continue to have the ability to make power purchases on behalf of our customers," said Pacific Gas & Electric Co. spokesman Ron Low. "But we cannot go on indefinitely borrowing money topay for our customers' electricity."

PG&E and Southern California Edison Co. are now in an $8 billion hole that gets deeper every day as the two companies are forced to pay market prices for power which they deliver to customers protected by rates frozen at a level 10 percent lower than they were paying in 1997.

So far in December, electricity prices have averaged about $330 per megawatt-hour, with a spike yesterday to $1,407 on the spot market. PG&E has since May paid around $4.6 billion more for power than it has collected from its customers. For SoCal Ed the figure is some $3.5 billion.

As a part of electric deregulation in California, the state's three investor-owned utilities (San Diego Gas & Electric Co. is the third) sold off their non-nuclear power plants. They were also enjoined by the state's restructuring law from entering into long-term power purchase agreements with the companies that bought their plants, and forced to purchase all of their power through a quasi-public agency, the California Power Exchange.

Yesterday, some operators of the state's power plants were declining to sell electricity to PG&E or SoCal Ed unless they received cash on the barrel head, a sure sign the power producers are worried about the possibility of bankruptcy.

Financial markets are beginning to take notice of the financial plight of the utilities, with Standard & Poor's placing both PG&E and SoCal Ed on its credit watch with "negative implications." But S&P said it expected that the two companies would eventually be allowed to collect most of their power costs from customers.

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