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The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has approved a waiver request from NextEra Energy that clears the way for the company to begin the process to restart Iowa’s only nuclear power plant.
NextEra requested a wavier to allow use of the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) generating facility replacement process to support the recommissioning of the Duane Arnold nuclear power facility, located in Palo, Iowa – the only reactor in the state. With the wavier request accepted, the 601-MW Duane Arnold site could see a potential commercial operation date by 2030.
MISO’s generating facility replacement process, accepted and implemented by FERC in 2019, provides an expedited procedure under the generator interconnection process to replace existing generating facilities with newer, more efficient generating facilities within MISO’s queue framework. FERC argued that the process can prevent generating facility owners seeking to make infrastructure investments from losing their existing interconnection service and potentially incurring “significant costs” to obtain replacement interconnection service at the same location. Thus, FERC determined, it’s not necessary to send the generation owners through the full interconnection process when the replacement generating facility will be using the same type and level of service as the existing generating facility.
Furthermore, earlier this year, FERC accepted revisions to the MISO replacement process to allow interconnection customers to use a different point of interconnection for a replacement generating facility if the customer can demonstrate that the new point of interconnection is “electrically equivalent” to the original point of interconnection, and that a change in the point of interconnection does not cause a “material adverse impact” to the MISO transmission system. NextEra Energy, taking advantage of these revisions, in its wavier request explained that it is seeking to consolidate the interconnection rights of the original generator interconnection agreements from both Duane Arnold and the Kinsella Energy Center to meet Duane Arnold’s historical peak winter net capacity range of 600 MW to 619 MW.
The Duane Arnold plant is a single-unity boiling water reactor that started commercial operations in 1975. NextEra Energy acquired a 70% interest in the plant in 2006, and ran the plant until its decommissioning in 2020. When the data center and AI boom ramped up in 2024, NextEra Energy began to put together a development and execution plan to restart the plant, noting the “unprecedented” increase in electrical demand.
In its request, NextEra Energy noted that the equipment necessary to recommission the plant, including generator step-up transformers, will not arrive until 2028, taking a 2026 commercial operation start out of the equation. Additionally, the company noted that it is in the process of reinstating an operating license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which includes safety inspections and analyses, environmental assessments, and public engagement that could result in “unforeseen delays.”
Nuclear power is seeing renewed interest due to unprecedented growth in electricity demand, largely driven by data centers and manufacturing. Duane Arnold could be the third U.S. nuclear plant to be recommissioned after being previously retired.
Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island is getting a new lease on life after Constellation Energy struck a deal with Microsoft. The tech company will purchase energy from the re-opened plant to help power its data centers. The 835 MW facility could come back online in 2028. Michigan’s Palisades is primed for a restart after owner Holtec International received a $1.5 billion federal loan to finance its restoration and related upgrades.
