The likely cause is the plant is essentially fully-depreciated //

CGNP's key finding was obtained by dividing PG&E's DCPP net cost forecast of $418,407,000.00 by the number of megawatt-hours (46,519,200 MWh) the plant would be producing if it ran 100% the time during this period. (PG&E must supply the replacement power any time the plant is not producing power, such as during an outage.) The net result was $8.9858 / MWh. Since there are 1,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) in a MWh, this corresponds to only 0.8958 net cents per kWh. This net cost is similar to the cost of running a large hydroelectric dam, the least-expensive means of grid-scale electric power production. //

Finally, DCPP's owners are not economically compensated for providing substantial synchronous grid inertia (SGI) to the California power grid. CGNP located a relevant 2018 filing from ERCOT, the Texas grid operator that underscores the economic value of nuclear power plants. Nuclear power plants contribute substantial capacity and SGI. ERCOT considers SGI so important that they post the current SGI value at their overview dashboard. CAISO should emulate ERCOT in properly valuing DCPP for its abundant capacity and SGI contribution to stabilize the California grid.