NRG intends to build two new nuclear units in Texas

Jun 21, 2006, 23:07 GMT

Princeton - Just a day after NRG energy company rejected a hostile takeover bid, the US company on Wednesday said it intended to invest 16 billion dollars in new electricity plants, including two new nuclear units in Texas.

The company's letter of intent to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission represented another step for the US toward developing nuclear energy after a near 30-year hiatus that followed accidents at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania and Chernobyl in Russia.

The application for the 5.2-billion-dollar, 2,700-megawatt expansion at the South Texas Project nuclear plant will bring to 14 the total number of plant applications in the works around the US, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade group.

The Texas project will include collaboration with Japan's Hitachi, using a General Electric design that has a strong track record in Japan for on-time, on-budget construction, the company said.

All told, NRG said in a statement that it planned to add 10,500 megawatts of new electricity using a diversity of energy resources over the next 10 years to meet growing demand for electricity in its service region of Texas, California and the northeastern US.

The strategy aims to reduce 'an over-reliance on natural gas' and reduce the company's 'carbon profile' by 20 to 25 per cent by using nuclear units, three gasified coal units and two new wind farms, NRG President David Crane said.

NRG is in the process of taking over the wind energy firm Padoma Wind Power LLC, based in California, and has interest in electricity plants in Germany, Brazil and Australia.

NRG energy shares soared Wednesday after it rejected a 7.9- billion-dollar hostile takeover bid from Mirant on Tuesday aimed at combining the two top Texas power companies that came through bankruptcy after Enron's collapse, Bloomberg financial news service reported.