PG&E Corp (PCG) saw its stock price plummet by 5.07% in intraday trading on Wednesday, as investors reacted to news of continued outages at one of the company's key nuclear power plants. The significant drop highlights the market's sensitivity to operational challenges in the utility sector.
According to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's daily data, PG&E's Diablo Canyon 1 nuclear plant, with a capacity of 1,122 MW, has been shut down since April 14. The plant is scheduled to restart on May 2, but the extended outage appears to be weighing heavily on investor sentiment. Nuclear power plants are critical assets for utility companies, providing reliable baseload power and contributing significantly to their revenue streams.
The outage at Diablo Canyon 1 comes at a time when the U.S. nuclear power industry is experiencing higher-than-average offline capacity. Currently, about 20% of the nation's nuclear power generation capacity is offline, compared to an 18% outage rate at the same time last year. This broader context of nuclear plant shutdowns may be amplifying concerns about PG&E's operational efficiency and its potential impact on the company's financial performance.
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