Nuclear

An equipment problem involving steam to the main turbine at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station in Arizona caused a shutdown of Unit 2, APS Generation said on Friday. The 1,270 MW unit (APS share = 380 MW) performed as designed in this situation and shut down automatically. While all of the equipment operated normally during the shutdown, the details are being investigated and it is expected that the unit will return to service early next week, APS said. Units 1 and 3 continue to operate at full power. In the meantime, APS reported that it has adequate supply to meet its customer needs. “Our reserves are sufficient to meet customer demands during the outage,” said Jim Levine, executive vice president of APS Generation. “Our customers will have the energy they need to keep their homes cool and their lights on.” APS Generation, a subsidiary of Pinnacle West Capital Corp., operates Palo Verde on behalf of the station’s six other owners.

Southern California Edison made good on its threat to go tocourt if FERC failed to respond immediately to its request tore-impose price controls on bulk power sales in the in theout-of-control California market.

Weekend prices were up by a few cents from end-of-March numbersin most cases Friday. The biggest upticks of about a dime or morewere concentrated at Northeast citygates and also at NorthernNatural’s demarc and Ventura points, where a bit of market-areachill lingered. Small declines of less than a nickel wereregistered in the Southwest basins and California.

J.P. Morgan & Co. will handle the auction of the non-nucleargeneration assets of Connecticut Light and Power Co. (CL&P), awholly owned subsidiary of Northeast Utilities, headquartered inBerlin, CT. The assets to be disposed of consist of 29 powerplants. CL&P’s power purchase agreements will be auctionedseparately in the near future.

New Jersey utility holding company GPU Inc. has sold itsnon-nuclear generating assets for $2.62 billion – 2.5 times bookvalue or $510 per kilowatt. The majority of generating assets werebought by French- and Japanese-owned Sithe Energies Inc. of NewYork City, which bought assets in New Jersey, Pennsylvania andMaryland. The deal will make Sithe the largest U.S. independentpower producer.

The 580 MW Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Co. nuclear projectin Haddam, CT, may be converted to burn natural gas on or before itis decommissioned if engineering studies now underway indicate sucha conversion is feasible.

FERC approved the divestiture-sale of most of the non-nucleargeneration assets of New England Power Co. (NEPCO) and NarragansettElectric Co. to USGen New England Inc., an unregulated subsidiaryof PG&E Corp.