Go-ahead for Columbia plant uprate

Wednesday, 28 May 2025

The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) announced on 20 May that it has given Energy Northwest the go-ahead for the Extended Power Uprate (EPU) at its Columbia Generating Station after 18 months of in-depth analysis. Over the next six years, Energy Northwest and BPA will collaborate on planning and implementation of the project, which will involve around 30 individual upgrades, primarily focused on increasing the size of pumps and motors. The work will be timed to coincide with biennial refuelling outages, and will increase the station's output by 162 MWe - enough capacity to power around 125,000 homes, the companies said.

Alongside the EPU, energy efficiency upgrades incorporated during the next three scheduled refuelling outages - in 2027, 2029 and 2031 - are expected to add 24 megawatts of output capacity, bringing the total increase to 186 megawatts.

Energy Northwest intends to submit a licence amendment request for the EPU to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2028.

Energy Northwest CEO Bob Schuetz applauded BPA for its decision to approve the project and for its "strategic vision in advancing our region's future with additional, reliable capacity that nuclear energy can provide," saying the Administration's support for the initiative "underscores a commitment to affordable and carbon-free electricity for the Northwest region, including our public power member utilities and their customers."

"This is a great value for ratepayers in the Pacific Northwest," said BPA Administrator and CEO John Hairston. "Upgrading an existing resource to provide additional reliable energy will help BPA keep pace with its customers growing electricity needs and keep rates low."

Capacity uprates and licensing extensions to existing nuclear plants are specifically mentioned in the raft of executive orders signed on 23 May by President Donald Trump, seeking to reinvigorate the US nuclear energy sector and triple nuclear generating capacity by 2050.

"President Trump and Secretary Wright have made it clear: expanding America's nuclear energy capacity will be essential for meeting growing demand for affordable, reliable and secure energy," said Department of Energy Acting Undersecretary for Infrastructure Michael Goff. “This project exemplifies the energy vision for America by unleashing new power generation for the people of the Pacific Northwest without raising costs."

The Columbia Generating Station, near Richland, is a single boiling water reactor that began commercial operation in 1984. It is currently licensed to operate until December 2043.

Energy Northwest is a Washington state public power joint operating agency comprising 29 public power member utilities and serving more than 1.5 million customers. It owns and operates hydroelectric, solar, battery storage and wind facilities, as well as the Columbia nuclear power plant. The agency recently announced an agreement with Amazon and X-energy for an initial development of four advanced small modular reactors (SMRs) generating about 320 MWe, at a site near the Columbia plant, with an option to treble that number to 12 reactors.

The BPA is a federally owned, non-profit wholesale power marketer, responsible for marketing the electricity produced from federally owned and operated hydroelectric dams in the Columbia River Basin as well as the output from the Columbia nuclear plant.

Article researched and written by WNN's Claire Maden