Carbon mitigation credit

[Table of Contents](#i59ca7ab3cc784e42904d434b0008a7a9_10)Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements(Dollars in millions, unless otherwise noted)  
Note 7 — Early Plant Retirements7. Early Plant Retirements We continuously evaluate factors that affect the current and expected economic value of our plants, including, but not limited to: market power prices, results of capacity auctions, potential legislative and regulatory solutions to ensure plants are fairly compensated for benefits they provide through their carbon-free emissions, reliability or fuel security, and the impact of potential rules from the EPA requiring reduction of carbon and other emissions and the efforts of states to implement those final rules. The precise timing of an early retirement date for any plant, and the resulting financial statement impacts, may be affected by many factors, including the status of potential regulatory or legislative solutions, results of any transmission system reliability study assessments, the nature of any co-owner requirements and stipulations, and NDT fund requirements for nuclear plants, among other factors. However, the earliest retirement date for any plant would usually be the first year in which the unit does not have capacity or other obligations, and where applicable, just prior to its next scheduled nuclear refueling outage.Nuclear GenerationOn August 27, 2020, we announced our intention to permanently cease our operations at Byron in September 2021 and at Dresden in November 2021. Neither of these nuclear plants cleared in PJM’s capacity auction for the 2022-2023 planning year held in May 2021. Our Braidwood and LaSalle nuclear plants in Illinois did clear in the capacity auction, but were also showing increased signs of economic distress.On September 15, 2021, the Illinois Public Act 102-0662 was signed into law by the Governor of Illinois ("Clean Energy Law"). The Clean Energy Law is designed to achieve 100% carbon-free power by 2045 to enable the state’s transition to a clean energy economy. Among other things, the Clean Energy Law authorized the IPA to procure up to 54.5 million CMCs from qualifying nuclear plants for a five-year period beginning on June 1, 2022 through May 31, 2027. CMCs are credits for the carbon-free attributes of eligible nuclear power plants in PJM. Our Byron, Dresden, and Braidwood nuclear plants located in Illinois participated in the CMC procurement process and were awarded contracts that commit each plant to operate through May 31, 2027. See Note 3 — Regulatory Matters for additional information. Following enactment of the legislation, we announced on September 15, 2021, that we have reversed our previous decision to retire Byron and Dresden given the opportunity for additional revenue under the Clean Energy Law. In addition, we no longer consider the Braidwood or LaSalle nuclear plants to be at risk for premature retirement.As a result of the decision to early retire Byron and Dresden, we recognized certain one-time charges in the third and fourth quarters of 2020 related to materials and supplies inventory reserve adjustments, employee-related costs including severance benefit costs, and construction work-in-progress impairments, among other items. In addition, there were ongoing annual financial impacts stemming from shortening the expected economic useful lives of these nuclear plants primarily related to accelerated depreciation of plant assets (including any ARC), accelerated amortization of nuclear fuel, and changes in ARO accretion expense associated with the changes in decommissioning timing and cost assumptions to reflect an earlier retirement date. In the third quarter of 2021, we reversed $81 million of severance benefit costs and $13 million of other one-time charges initially recorded in Operating and maintenance expense in the third and fourth quarters of 2020 associated with the early retirements. In addition, we updated the expected economic useful life for both facilities to 2044 and 2046 for Byron Units 1 and 2, respectively, and to 2029 and 2031 for Dresden Units 2 and 3, respectively, the end of the respective NRC operating license for each unit. Depreciation was therefore adjusted beginning September 15, 2021, to reflect these extended useful life estimates. See Note 10 — Asset Retirement Obligations for additional detail on changes to the nuclear decommissioning ARO balances resulting from the initial decision and subsequent reversal of the decision to early retire Byron and Dresden.In Pennsylvania, the TMI nuclear plant did not clear in the May 2017 PJM capacity auction for the 2020-2021 planning year, the third consecutive year that TMI failed to clear the PJM base residual capacity auction and on May 30, 2017, based on these capacity auction results, prolonged periods of low wholesale power prices, and the absence of federal or state policies, we announced that we would permanently cease generation operations at TMI. On September 20, 2019, TMI permanently ceased generation operations.The total impact for the years ended December 31, 2021, 2020, and 2019 in the Consolidated Statements of Operations and Comprehensive Income resulting from the initial decision and subsequent reversal of the decision to early retire Byron and Dresden, and decision to early retire TMI is summarized in the table below.108  
  
  

