WASHINGTON, Aug 7 (Reuters) - The Trump administration on Thursday said it issued a fifth installment of a loan guarantee for Holtec International's Michigan nuclear plant, which the company hopes will be the first U.S. reactor to restart after shuttering.
The Department of Energy said it has now disbursed more than $83 million of the up to $1.52 billion loan guarantee for the 800-megawatt Palisades reactor.
The conditional loan guarantee was initiated by former President Joe Biden's Loan Programs Office to support nuclear energy, which generates virtually emissions-free power, to help satisfy rising electricity demand from data centers and artificial intelligence.
Since then Constellation Energy CEG.O said it would reopen the former Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania, widely known as the site of a partial meltdown in 1979 that chilled the nuclear industry. Constellation said in June that the plant could restart in 2027, about a year ahead of schedule.
Power company Entergy ETR.N closed Palisades in 2022, after it operated for more than 50 years. It shut two weeks ahead of schedule over a glitch with a control rod, despite a $6 billion federal program to save reactors suffering from rising costs.
U.S. President Donald Trump signed executive orders in May to fast-track new nuclear power licenses, and overhaul the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which issues them. The NRC last month approved Holtec's request to load fuel into the reactor.
But the NRC said then there are still several licensing actions under its review and requirements that need to be met before Palisades can restart under the original operating license, which expires in 2031.
Holtec is repairing steam generators at Palisades as the standard procedure for maintaining the units was not followed when the plant went into shutdown.
Holtec, which said in March it wanted to restart the plant in the fourth quarter of 2025, did not immediately respond to a request about whether that timing still stands.
(Reporting by Timothy GardnerEditing by Marguerita Choy)
((timothy.gardner@thomsonreuters.com))
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