AIBRIEF
We Energies wants Oracle to "subscribe" to 10–20% of Point Beach's output and absorb Point Beach's above market fuel costs. Approval sits with the state Public Service Commission.
We Energies announced Friday that it has agreed to let Oracle "subscribe" to between 10% and 20% of the Point Beach Nuclear Plant's generation, the 60-year-old Manitowoc County facility that is Wisconsin's largest single generator. Spokesman Brendan Conway said the deal, if approved by the state Public Service Commission, could spare the utility's other customers roughly $300 million in fuel costs over five years (WRJN, We Energies release).
The mechanism is not a sale. We Energies sold Point Beach to NextEra Energy in 2007 but kept buying most of the output; its current purchase contract runs through 2033, and it has signed on to continue buying about 86% of the plant's electricity for another 20 years. A subscription lets a third party take a percentage of that generation and absorb the underlying fuel-cost spread. Point Beach's nuclear fuel costs We Energies roughly twice as much per unit as the fuel mix of its sister utility, Wisconsin Public Service Company.
The subscribed output would feed Project Lighthouse, a planned Port Washington data center campus that Oracle says will be powered by Point Beach nuclear (Oracle release). On the same day, We Energies filed a separate application with the PSC to build a new natural gas plant at the Fox Energy Center in Outagamie County, a parallel move that shows the utility is hedging that nuclear alone will not meet demand growth (PSC docket 6630/TE/113). The subscription, the gas plant, and the ratepayer savings all sit in the same regulatory queue.
Disclosure: Wisconsin Watch originally reported this story.