MidAmerican Energy spent $2.3 million on its nuclear plant feasibility study over the past 16 months, but has asked the Iowa Utilities Board (IUB) to keep details of most of those expenditures confidential.
The privately owned utility company was given approval by the legislature in April 2010 to collect a total of $15 million over a three-year period to pay for the nuclear plant feasibility study.
MidAmerican began incurring charges for the work immediately after the legislature acted and four months later the utility began charging customers for the study after the rate tariff was approved by the IUB on Sept. 30, 2010.
A total of $5.6 million has been collected from customers through September 30 of this year.
The utility reported it has spent $1.9 million for "nuclear site characterization, nuclear business planning, nuclear technical assessment and nuclear support," but details of those expenses have been redacted in the report filed with the IUB.
For the 16-month period, the utility has spent nearly $220,000 (nearly $14,000 a month) on "travel and expenses." That's more than the utility filed to recover for labor and overhead, $196,000, during that same period. MidAmerican, which is owned by Bershire Hathaway, reported it also spent $723,000 on labor costs not to be recovered from ratepayers.
As part of MidAmerican's annual report to the IUB filing today (11/23), the utility submitted an affidavit from its vice president of energy asking the board to keep secret the detailed purchase order information involving the $1.9 million in expenses.
"It is my opinion that the Confidential Workpaper comprises trade secrets which are of significant commercial value to MidAmerican," Richard J. Singer, MidAmerican's Vice President of Fuel, Emissions & Transportation, stated. "The open access of this information to the general public and, specifically, to competitors of and suppliers to MidAmerican would provide them with a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Release of this information would serve no public purpose."
The affidavit further states it is "not the intent to withhold this information from the Iowa Utilities Board or the Office of Consumer Advocate so as to carry out their statutory responsibilities."
The "nuclear site characterization" work, according to the report, "involved the evaluation of land parcels in Iowa to identify preferred sites for a nuclear facility."
However, the report says, no on-site investigations of sites have begun and the assessment so far has only used industry and U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) siting guides for the work.
CLICK HERE to download the full annual report on nuclear plant feasibility study costs.
CLICK HERE to download the utility's request for confidentiality.
CLICK HERE to download the utility's redacted form.
