Oliver Kingsley, the new president and chief executive of Exelon, has described his plans for the company.
"In the short term, there will be no dramatic changes. In the long term, I can't say there will be dramatic changes, but change is inevitable," he said.
Among the first challenges will be a non-nuclear one: the potential melding into Exelon of roughly 8000MWe of North American fossil-fired capacity operated or under development by Sithe Energies. Exelon acquired 49.9% of Sithe in August 2000 for $682 million, including an option to acquire the remaining 50.1% within 2-5 years. That acquisition looks probable. Kingsley said: "We look forward to properly integrating the Sithe assets with Exelon Power, which can occur as early as December 2002. We are working with Sithe management to determine exactly when that integration occurs." On the nuclear side, the former chief nuclear officer of Exelon Nuclear said that the uprating of Exelon's reactors, which began in 1999, is roughly half completed, with the bulk of unit tweaking to be completed this year. By 2004, Exelon will have added 900-1000MWe in capacity.
Relicensing is also ongoing. Exelon applied in July 2001 to relicense Peach Bottom 2 and 3, and Kingsley said that procedure should be coming to a conclusion soon. Renewal applications will also be filed in 2003 for Dresden and Quad Cities. He also said: "We are currently reviewing the economics of relicensing the Three Mile Island and Oyster Creek facilities." Kingsley said that, following the dramatic fall of wholesale power prices, a number of assets could come on to the market for acquisition-minded firms like Exelon.
