The Millstone Power Station, Unit 2 in Waterford was issued an operating license on Sept. 26, 1975, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The means the unit turns 50 this year and state officials say they plan to join Dominion Energy leadership, local officials, industry representatives, station employees and retirees today to mark this half-century anniversary of Millstone’s Unit 2.
Dominion Energy Nuclear Connecticut, Inc. is the official name of the operator of Millstone, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The license to operate was renewed in 2005 and it does not expire until 2035, also according to the NRC.
Millstone has made news a few times in the past year or so, including over controversy about a plan for development of a data center in southeast Connecticut.
A mega data center could drive AI, deliver billions to CT. Will politics and power worries doom it?
The proposal called for plugging directly into two nuclear-powered generators operated by Dominion Energy on Millstone Point in Waterford. Skeptics worry that the data center’s power consumption — as much as 13% of the Millstone output — could raise consumer electric rates or, worse, affect the reliability of the regional electricity supply.
Further in news, it came as a surprise to many state residents last year that the widely disliked public benefits charge on electricity bill was in part being paid over 10 months to cover a deal with the Millstone nuclear power plant. To guarantee Millstone’s continued operation, the state signed a long term power purchase agreement that, depending on market conditions, requires Eversource and United Illuminating to buy Millstone power at above market rates.
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Millstone then represented 77% of the public benefits charge and the other 23% paid for various bipartisan programs and recovering charges from the four-year moratorium in which the utilities were blocked from shutting off various customers that started during the coronavirus pandemic.
A 2017 Millstone deal is driving the high public benefits charge on CT electric bills. Here’s why
Gov. New Lamont also has expressed interest in nuclear power, saying, “Nuclear power already provides most of our carbon-free power. That’s why we’re working with the federal government to find ways to expand nuclear capacity here in Connecticut.”
Connecticut relies almost entirely on natural gas and nuclear power for electric generation.
That said, we thought is would be interesting to see what was being reported about Millstone in 1975, around when Unit 2 went online.
So we looked in the archives. This is not all the stories written in 1974-76, but a selection to give an idea of what was being reported in that era.