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CHAPPAQUA JOURNAL, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1980 3 Indian Point 2 and Your Electric Bill • * • £ You may have asked yourself why your elec tric bills should go up while the Indian Point 2 nuclear plant is down. Why, in other words, should you pay for what some people claim were our mistakes? The fact is that Indian Point 2 is out of service not because of our mistakes. It is out of ser vice because it needs new pipes in its heat exchangers, a refueling, maintenance work, and certain plant modifications which had been planned some time ago. With benefit of hindsight, some mistakes were made in connection with last month's water- leak incident at Indian Point. We will learn from these mistakes. But they did not cause the present outage, or endanger our employees or the public, or damage the reactor. Even so, you may ask, why should my bills be higher? The reason is that when Indian Point 2 is not generating we must replace its output largely with oil-generated electricity. Oil is much mo\re ' expensive than nuclear fuel, about ten times more expensive. Why should you pay? But why should you be required to pay the extra cost of oil? Fuel is the basic raw material from which we produce electricity. It is also the single largest item in our cost of doing business, about one- third of the total cost. We bill the cost of fuel to our customers in accordance with New York Public Service Commission (PSC) regulations known as the \fuel adjustment factor.\ Each month, by PSC rules, we charge Con Edison customers for the actual cost of the fuel we used the pre vious month to generate electricity. In any given month, if the cost of fuel goes up, the fuel charge itemized on.your bill also, goes up. If the cost goes down, the fuel charge on your bill goes down. Dollar for dollar, cent for cent. This method of charging for fuel has been used in New York State for more than 60 years. It guarantees that utilities do not make windfall profits from reductions in the cost of their fuel. It also assures that utilities do not absorb losses from increases in their fuel costs. Indian Point benefits customers For Con Edison customers this method of charging Indian Point 2's fuel costs has been extremely beneficial. Since 1973, when the plant began operating, customers have saved all of the $885,000,000 difference between the . cost of nuclear fuel and the cost of fuel oil that would have been burned if Indian Point 2 had not been operating. (By comparison, Con Edison's shareholders over the same period have received less than one-tenth this amount as a return on their investment in Indian Point 2.) This year alone, Indian Point 2 has saved our customers $206,000,000 in fuel charges. Changing the rules wouldn't work To change the rules now—and say that our customers receive fuel cost benefits when Indian Point 2 is operating, but our share holders pay the cost of replacement fuel when it is not operating—would be very unfair. If that sort of \heads I win, tails you lose\ philosophy is applied, ratepayers will be the losers because investors won't be willing to provide the capital to build more fuel-saving plants. Two reasons for the shutdown Indian Point 2 is not out of service to repair damage caused by the recent accumulation of. 100,000 or more gallons of river water on the containment building floor and in the reac tor cavity. As regrettable as the incident was, the water caused no substantial damage. Indian Point 2 has been taken out of service for two primary reasons. First, to replace all 6,000 pipes in the heat exchangers of the plant's air cooling system Leaks in some of these pipes, combined with sump pump failures, caused the water accumulation. Second, to do refueling, modification, and maintenance work which originally had been scheduled to begin in mid-December and run through mid-April. Prior to the flooding, we had 'planned to replace leak-prone pipes in one part of the air cpoling system. As a result of the increased frequency of water leaks, and tests we per formed in October, we decided it would be prudent to replace all the pipes in the entire system before restarting the plant. An industry-wide problem No one can seriously contend that it was Con Edison's fault that the cooler pipes developed water leaks. Leaking cooling systems are an industry-wide problem—not only in nuclear plants, but also in oil-fired and coal-fired plants. The refueling and maintenance procedures have now begun They are expected to last until early June, possibly longer, possibly somewhat shorter. We will do our best to bring the plant back as rapidly as prudence will permit. When Indian Point 2 is back in service, you will once again reap the benefits of this most economical source of power on the entire Con Edison system. conserve energy (This message paid for by the stockholders of Con Edison.) ...... '..i »
