Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station | |
---|---|
Country | United States |
Location | Lacey Township, Ocean County, New Jersey |
Coordinates | 39°48′53″N 74°12′18″W / 39.81472°N 74.20500°W |
Status | Being decommissioned |
Construction began | December 15, 1964 |
Commission date | December 23, 1969[1] |
Decommission date | September 17, 2018 |
Construction cost | $488 million (2007 USD)[2] |
Owner | Oyster Creek Environmental Protection |
Operator | Holtec Decommissioning International |
Nuclear power station | |
Reactor type | BWR |
Reactor supplier | General Electric |
Cooling source | Barnegat Bay |
Power generation | |
Make and model | BWR-2 (Mark 1) |
Units decommissioned | 1 × 619 MW (1930 MWth) |
Nameplate capacity |
|
Capacity factor | 100.14% (2017) 74.0% (lifetime) |
External links | |
Website | Oyster Creek Generating Station |
Commons | Related media on Commons |
Oyster Creek Nuclear Power Station is an inactive single unit 636 MWe boiling water reactor power plant in the United States. The plant is located on an 800-acre (3.2 km2) site adjacent to Oyster Creek in the Forked River section of Lacey Township in Ocean County, New Jersey. At the time of its closure, the facility was owned by Exelon Corporation and, along with unit 1 at Nine Mile Point Nuclear Generating Station, was the oldest operating commercial nuclear power plant in the United States.[3] The plant first started commercial operation on December 23, 1969,[1] and is licensed to operate until April 9, 2029, but Oyster Creek was permanently shut down in September 2018.[4] The plant got its cooling water from Barnegat Bay, a brackish estuary that empties into the Atlantic Ocean through the Barnegat Inlet.
At the time of shutdown, Oyster Creek was one of four licensed nuclear power reactors in New Jersey. The others are the two units at the Salem Nuclear Power Plant, and the one unit at Hope Creek Nuclear Generating Station.[5] As of January 1, 2005, New Jersey ranked 9th among the 31 states with nuclear capacity for total MWe generated. In 2003, nuclear power generated over one half of the electricity in the state.[6]
In 1999, GPU agreed to sell the Oyster Creek Nuclear Plant to AmerGen Energy for $10 million.[7] AmerGen was later purchased by Exelon in 2003.[8] Exelon fully integrated AmerGen's former assets, including Oyster Creek, in early 2009.[9]
The reactor was shut down on September 17, 2018.[10]
In September 2019, Ocean Wind, a proposed 1,100 MWe offshore wind farm, with the approval of the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, secured the capacity interconnection rights to bring the power generated by the wind farm on-shore at Oyster Creek. It can use the existing power infrastructure of the plant, after some upgrades, to connect to the regional transmission grid.[11][12][13]
In January 2021, Holtec suggested that a "new generation" nuclear plant might be built at the location.[1]