Southern California Edison (SCE) served a formal notice of dispute on Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and Mitsubishi Nuclear Energy Systems (together, Mitsubishi) which seeks to hold Mitsubishi accountable for designing and manufacturing defective replacement steam generators (RSGs) at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS). Although Mitsubishi warranted the generators would operate reliably for 20 years, SCE was required to take SONGS offline in January 2012 when one of the Mitsubishi RSGs experienced a radioactive coolant leak after less than a year of operation. Although its contract with SCE required Mitsubishi to repair the RSGs “with due diligence and dispatch,” SCE’s notice of dispute alleges that Mitsubishi failed to do so. Facing continued uncertainty about restoring SONGS to service at any level of power, SCE permanently retired the plant as of June 2013.
