California PUC launches probe of San Onofre outage

The probe will look at the costs already incurred in the long-running outage at the nuclear power plant resulting from defective replacement steam generators.

By Abby Sewell, Los Angeles Times

October 26, 2012

The California Public Utilities Commission has launched an investigation into the nine-month outage at the San Onofre nuclear plant, which could result in rates eventually being lowered or money refunded to utility customers.

The five commissioners voted unanimously to launch the investigation at a meeting Thursday in Irvine, the first such probe in California in a decade.

Commission President Michael Peevey promised that the investigation of the darkened plant — on the coastline south of San Clemente — will be "exhaustive." It could also be time-consuming, potentially not finished until the second half of 2014.

The investigation will look at the costs already incurred in the long-running outage, which resulted from defective replacement steam generators, and at the potential cost to ratepayers from repairs as well as scenarios in which one or both reactors never come back online.

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