Battelle sees rating for its energy sector make gains

Associated Press

IDAHO FALLS - The contractor that operates the Idaho National Laboratory has improved its performance rating from the U.S. Department of Energy. A new DOE rating says Battelle Energy Alliance earned 91.4 percent of its available fee during fiscal year 2013. That was a substantial improvement over the previous year, when the company earned about 86 percent of the total contract fee.

The fiscal year 2012 rating was the company's lowest since it began work at INL in 2005. Battelle's contract with the DOE allows the federal government to adjust its annual payout based on performance, up to a maximum of about $18.5 million.

"I am very pleased with DOE's recognition of our efforts this past year as we worked very hard to overcome the adversities of the 2012 operational setbacks and the fiscal reality of 2013," Juan Alvarez, deputy laboratory director for management, wrote in an email to the Post Register.

Battelle, with about 3,500 employees, operates the Idaho National Laboratory, which is the DOE's lead nuclear energy research and development facility. The lab focuses on three areas: Nuclear energy and technology, energy and the environment, and national and homeland security.

Battelle didn't get a 100 percent rating for 2013 in part because of deficiencies in worker safety and other operations, the DOE said. But the department also noted that the Idaho laboratory had several achievements, including a research discovery that officials said advanced understanding about a kind of fuel used in high-temperature, gas-cooled reactors.