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Committee clears bill letting utilities sign power'purchase agreements with advanced nuclear resources, with limits
Summary
The committee voted to recommend HB 710 as amended, allowing investor-owned distribution utilities to enter power-purchase agreements (PPAs) for advanced nuclear resources under the same statutory mechanism used in Senate Bill 54, while keeping existing caps and adding technical corrections.
The Science, Technology and Energy Committee voted 14-3 on March 4 to recommend House Bill 710 as amended, a measure that would allow investor-owned electric distribution utilities to sign multi-year power-purchase agreements (PPAs) with advanced nuclear resources using the language and limits established in Senate Bill 54.
The amendment removed an earlier draft's provision that would have authorized the Department of Energy to issue requests for proposals, corrected typographical references to RSA citations, hyphenated technical terms (for example, "sodium-cooled"), and extended the date window for advanced nuclear proposals. The amendment's sponsor said the bill does not require utilities to own or build nuclear plants; instead it permits PPAs under the existing procurement framework established two years earlier in Senate Bill 54.
Committee members discussed the statutory timeline in SB 54 (including the original June 30, 2025 RFP date and associated one-year procurement window) and confirmed that the bill does not change the 2,000,000 MWh cap and the percentage-of-load limits already in statute. The Department of Energy testified it is "comfortable with that authority," but members raised procedural questions about whether the department or utilities should be the contracting entity for future procurement.
Representative Carmen noted a drafting typo (RSA citation) and members corrected a date-question for consistency. The committee adopted amendment 0716H (15-2) and then voted 14-3 on the motion that HB 710 ought to pass as amended. The committee majority will prepare the report and Representative Kaplan indicated she would write a minority report opposing the measure.
