Salt Lake City, UT (November 6, 2025)  – Rocky Mountain Power (RMP) recently declined to expedite renewable energy projects that would have accessed expiring federal tax credits, potentially saving ratepayers billions of dollars. Yet RMP now seeks special dispensation to obtain its own “time sensitive” federal aid for nuclear power. [1] Will consumers benefit? Sorry, that info is classified. 

In a request filed with the Utah Public Service Commission (PSC), RMP wants statutory requirements waived so it can pursue federal dollars for a power purchase agreement (PPA) with the proposed Natrium (Terrapower) reactor in Kemmerer, Wyoming.

But RMP won’t release crucial details that could justify its contract with the “first-of-a-kind” reactor that may not go online until 2032, if then. [2]  Documents from October 20, 2025 that the utility has submitted to the PSC are marked “Confidential” or heavily redacted, so that public access to RMP’s costs-vs-benefits analysis is restricted. Without this information, it is impossible to independently substantiate RMP’s claim that the Natrium deal can provide “system-wide benefits…at a reasonable cost” to ratepayers. [3]

The proposed Natrium nuclear reactor – designated Kemmerer Power Station Unit 1 (the “KU1 project”) – figures into RMP/PacifiCorp’s 20-year integrated resource plan (2025 Utah IRP) that the PSC still must approve. Like RMP’s Natrium PPA filing, the IRP also hides important details, stating that “the specific cost and performance assumptions for the Natrium advanced nuclear demonstration project are confidential and are not summarized.” [4]

According to testimony by PacifiCorp Vice President Rick Link, Natrium’s owner Terrapower (dba. US SFR) has a unique partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy, whose funding requirements and NRC licensing schedules “cannot accommodate traditional utility procurement timelines.” [5] Therefore, RMP requests that the PSC waive the normal resource solicitation process so the utility can fast-track its quest for nuclear power. 

Meanwhile, in Wyoming, legislators and communities have pushed back on potential storage of high level nuclear waste. 

Utah advocates for reliable, affordable, renewable energy are dismayed by RMP’s duplicitous refusal to facilitate a “time-limited opportunity” for federal tax credits to solar, wind, and energy storage projects with data that clearly shows benefits to ratepayers, while at the same time pursuing an agenda for nuclear procurement cloaked in secrecy. [6]

“It’s unreasonable that Rocky Mountain Power would pass up shovel-ready clean energy projects that will save Utahns money, then beg the Commission to speed things up for a reactor that’s at least seven years out, with uncertain benefits and obvious risks to the public, said Lexi Tuddenham, Executive Director of HEAL Utah.  “Natrium is still in the design stage with fuel options likely a decade or more out, and RMP’s refusal to disclose crucial details about the project undermine its mandate to act in the public’s interest .”

Members of the public can email comments to the PSC [psc@utah.gov] on RMP’s expedited Natrium action request [Docket 25-035-55] and the 2025 IRP [Docket 25-035-22]. -end-
###

References:

[1] RMP PPA application, 10/20/2025 in 25-035-55, p. 2

[2] Rick Link testimony in 25-035-55, p. 2

[3] ibid, p.2

[4] 2025 IRP, Vol. 1, p. 147

[5] Rick Link testimony in 25-035-55, p. 7

[6] UCE request in 25-035-52, p. 8