In a victory for ratepayers, the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility (A4NR) has scored a Proposed Decision from the CPUC that will return $43.2 million from PG&E back into customer’s pockets.
Contrary to A4NR’s initial opposition, the CPUC in 2019 gave PG&E $130 million to replace the troubled main generator stator in Unit 2 at Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. During 2020-2021 the replacement unit failed to perform as expected, leading to 149 days of unplanned outages and requiring PG&E to purchase $178 million in replacement power for which they were going to charge ratepayers.
A4NR made extensive discovery requests in that CPUC proceeding, gaining access to PG&E’s internal Root Cause Evaluation reports after signing an NDA. Intensively scrutinizing the trove of confidential documents, the Alliance team pieced together a string of failed oversight and supervisorial mishaps on the part of PG&E’s management team. Although the CPUC judge found that PG&E acted appropriately for five of the six outages,