Wolverine Power Cooperative has been awarded a $600 million grant from the federal Empowering Rural America program, also known as the New ERA program, to help purchase electricity from the currently shuttered Palisades nuclear power plant, should the plant restart.
Wolverine is the distributor for a group of customer-owned electric co-ops which cover 65% of the counties in Michigan's Lower Peninsula.
The grant is part of a more-than $2 billion package in government subsidies being offered to get the restart of the Palisades plant off the ground — but no shuttered reactor in the U.S. has ever been restarted.
If the plant does restart, owner Holtec will sell two-thirds of its electricity to Wolverine, which will use its grant to subsidize customers' bills to keep them affordable, under the New ERA plan. The electricity from the plant would be emissions free, but more expensive than that produced by natural gas or renewable sources.
Holtec will sell the remaining electricity to Hoosier Energy, another non-profit electric co-op, which also received a federal New ERA grant to subsidize the cost of the electricity to its customers.
Wolverine Power Cooperative claims the deal, if it comes to fruition, means it will beat Michigan's 2040 clean energy target by 10 years, but that's not entirely accurate.
Although the electricity from Palisades would be emissions-free, Wolverine intends to continue operating its fossil fuel facilities located in the state — and sell the electricity on the open market.
The cooperative also owns a small stake in the two Ohio coal-fired power plants at the heart of what is reportedly the largest corruption scheme in Ohio's history.
Those plants are slated to remain open until 2040.
