The electricity would come from the 1,245 megawatt Seabrook nuclear power plant, which NextEra owns in southern New Hampshire.
Mary Powell, president and CEO of Green Mountain Power, lauded the deal, which was forged over the last three months.
“This agreement is very favorable for our customers, and delivers on the vision Green Mountain Power launched three years ago to move to a cleaner, greener future in a cost effective way,” Powell said in a statement. “We set out to accomplish this by ramping up cost-effective renewables while we built a solid portfolio that is low in carbon, cost and is incredibly reliable. This provides the perfect platform for our continued efforts to pursue cost effective renewable energy options.”
NextEra is a large, Florida-based utility that owns more than 100 power generating facilities in 26 states and Canada.
Over the next few years, Green Mountain Power will take 15 megawatts of power from Seabrook. In 2015, the utility will have access to 60 megawatts of power from Seabrook. Over the life of the 23-year contract, the amount of electricity will decrease to about 40 megawatts.
Green Mountain Power also negotiated an additional 25 megawatts of power at the 4.66-cent rate per kilowatt-hour for other Vermont utilities.
Powell said the company’s agreement with NextEra rounds out the Vermont utility’s renewable portfolio. Green Mountain Power, which is owned by the Canadian company Gaz Metro, has also sealed a contract with Hydro-Quebec and plans to build Kingdom Community Wind in Lowell.
In all, Green Mountain Power has secured more than 70 percent of the energy it needs in long-term contracts or projects, Schnure said.
The company has been seeking alternatives to power from Vermont Yankee because of uncertainty about whether the nuclear power plant will continue operations after its state license expires in March of next year.
Schnure said, “This isn’t about Vermont Yankee. It’s not a referendum on the Vermont Yankee plant, it’s about fulfilling our vision for our customers. We didn’t have an agreement with Entergy at this point.”
The last offer from Entergy was 6 cents per kilowatt-hour.
Liz Miller, commissioner of the Department of Public Service, said the agreement must be reviewed by the state, but initially she said the deal is “another example of utilities (fulfilling) diverse power needs at price that’s good for Vermonters.”
“From ratepayer point of view, I do want to see diversity in the power portfolio and a ratepayer impact that appears favorable,” Miller said in an interview.
Environmentalists are disappointed with the Green Mountain Power deal.
Chris Kilian, the director of the Conservation Law Foundations operations in Vermont, said that the agreement is “not what we would have chosen.”
“We don’t think replacing nukes with nukes is the right way to go,” Kilian said. “We would rather see an earlier transition away from nukes and more polluting sources now and a real focus on replacing these power sources with renewable energy and very aggressive energy efficiency implementation.”
Kilian estimates that the state could replace about 10 percent of its power needs with energy efficiency measures that are “cheaper than any power source out there.”
“Our concern with nukes is that they are highly subsidized and not economically viable,” Kilian said. “The only way to make them competitive is with huge tax subsidies and we think that’s not appropriate. There really is no solution for the long-term storage of radioactive waste.”
The Conservation Law Foundation will be watching and evaluating the deal as it goes through the regulatory process, Kilian said.
James Moore, the clean energy advocate for VPIRG, says the NextEra deal offers a silver lining.
“It exposes Entergy’s argument that it has the best nuclear game in town,” Moore said. “It shows all the fear mongering about rates going up is completely unfounded.”
Moore said that the state would be better off relying on more local renewable power sources. He said tying the state to 23 years of nuclear power is problematic. “Did we learn nothing from the fact that Vermont Yankee at end of its life is showing real reliability problems?”
