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The tickers stopped, the office went quiet, and one small state kept breaking the pattern on my screen. Evening.
One state's power bills fell 10% this year. It owes that to a deal people called a bailout.
And that deal runs out in 2029, just as the richest buyers on Earth started shopping for the same thing.
Nearly every power bill story this year points one way. Up.
In Ohio, 15 of 16 metro areas had higher bills than a year ago. Cleveland was up 28.1%. The national home rate hit 18.34 cents per kWh in June, up 5% in a year.
Connecticut went the other way. It didn't build a new plant. It didn't find a miracle. It signed a contract seven years ago and left it alone.
In 2019, the state's utilities agreed to buy half the output of Millstone, the nuclear plant on its shoreline. The price: about $50 per megawatt-hour, fixed for 10 years. The seller, Dominion, had warned it might close the plant without a deal.
Plenty of people hated it. When lawmakers opened the door in 2017, critics called it an "unneeded bailout". One MIT paper ranked Millstone among the most profitable nuclear plants in the country. The House passed it 75 to 66.
Then gas got expensive, and the fixed price didn't budge. When market power costs more than the contract, the gap flows back to customers. A line that used to be a charge turned into a monthly credit of $30 to $34. The state says its nuclear contracts have saved customers $153 million so far. Connecticut dropped from fifth-priciest state to 12th.
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Jeff Brown believes Elon Musk is about to make it possible to retire on this single stock. |
And no, it's not Tesla or SpaceX. |
Click here to see the details because he's recommending you buy shares before November 11. |
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So the bailout was really insurance. And insurance is cheapest when nobody thinks they need it.
In 2019, nobody wanted old nuclear plants. They were closing across the country. Connecticut bought when the seller was nervous and the room was empty.
The room is not empty anymore. In January, Meta signed 20-year deals for 2,176 MW from Perry and Davis-Besse, two nuclear plants in Ohio. Purchases start late this year.
"Importantly, this commitment from Meta provides Vistra the certainty needed to invest in these plants and communities and bring new nuclear generation online for the grid – through uprates at our existing plants."
Notice the word. Certainty. That is exactly what Connecticut bought. I'm not saying Meta's deal raised Ohio bills. It hasn't even started. I'm saying who holds the fixed price. In Connecticut, it's the households. In Ohio, for the next 20 years, it's a tech company.
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The clock: Connecticut's Millstone contract ends in 2029. So does its deal with Seabrook in New Hampshire. |
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The seller: NextEra is buying Dominion for $66.8 billion. If it closes, one company owns both Millstone and Seabrook, about a quarter of New England's power. |
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The rivals: Tech giants have already lined up about 6.9 GW from existing or restarted reactors. Every one of those megawatts is spoken for. |
Connecticut is already back at the table with a new regional bid. Its governor says competition will get "the best deal for ratepayers." Maybe. But the first deal was good because nobody else was bidding. Next time, the state bids against the deepest pockets in business, and haggles with a seller that could own every reactor in the region.
Connecticut didn't get lucky. It bought insurance before the fire.
The next policy gets written in a very crowded room.
— Theodore
The Capital Current ⚡
Every financial story has a power line running through it.
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