Tag Archives: Georgia Public Service Commission

Georgia Power seeks approval of higher costs at Plant Vogtle

by Walter C. Jones
ATLANTA 1/23/16 — Georgia Power Company wants regulators to bless its share in more than $900 million in cost overruns incurred so far in building two nuclear reactors at the Plant Vogtle generating facility near Augusta.

The company denies its request amounts to approval of the overruns. At least one regulator said his agency can ignore the request until the reactors are generating electricity. And he estimates the impact of the request to be as high as $2.5 billion in added costs to electricity customers.
Company lawyers filed a formal request Thursday seeking approval by the Public Service Commission of the utility’s contract with the new builders.

Georgia Power, which owns 45.7 percent of Vogtle, and the utilities that own the rest of the plant signed an agreement with Westinghouse and with Chicago Bridge & Iron’s Stone & Webster division to design and build two reactors for $6.8 billion. Various problems led to delays and cost overruns, prompting the owners and the builders to sue each in other in 2013 over who would pay the added costs.

Read the whole article: Augusta Chronicle

Georgians, get ready for a power bill sticker shock

by Tom Crawford
Gainesville, GA 12/16/15 — In the 1970s, Georgia Power started work on two nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle near Waynesboro. It was initially estimated that the two units would cost $660 million and take about seven years to build. In fact, the project took nine more years and cost more than $8 billion by the time the reactors actually started generating electricity.

The lesson should have been clear: Nuclear power is very expensive and has significant safety issues, as well. Surely, Georgia Power and the Public Service Commission would be extremely leery about ever approving such a project again.

Read the whole article: Gainesville Times

PSC members rest eyes, ban critical testimony during Vogtle hearing

by Gloria Tatum
Atlanta 12/14/15 — Georgia Public Service Commissioners struggled to maintain a quorum, and apparently also to stay awake, at Georgia Power’s thirteenth semi-annual Vogtle Construction Monitoring Report (VCM) hearing on December 10, 2015.

Two photographs show Commissioner Stan Wise (District 5) resting his eyes, during one of the many instances in which Atlanta Progressive News observed Wise rest his eyes for a couple minutes or so at a time.

Read the whole article: Atlanta Progressive News

More delays for Plant Vogtle

by Walter C. Jones
Atlanta 12/11/15 — Work to add two nuclear reactors to Plant Vogtle is growing further behind schedule, according to experts hired by state regulators to monitor construction who testified Thursday.

William Jacobs, a nuclear engineer who has managed the construction and startup of seven reactors, testified at a hearing before the Public Service Commission that efforts to catch up haven’t been successful. Instead, the commission consultant said delays have gotten worse despite assurances from Georgia Power executives.

Read the whole article: Savannah Morning News

Vogtle nukes could encounter more delays, monitors say

by Tom Crawford
Atlanta 12/10/15 — Georgia Power’s two nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle, already 39 months behind schedule, could encounter further delays before they actually start generating electricity, according to the experts monitoring the project for the Public Service Commission.

The start dates for the new reactors currently are June 2019 for Unit 3 and June 2020 for Unit 4, but the monitors told the PSC Thursday that it was “unlikely” Georgia Power will meet those commercial operation dates.

“From what we’ve seen in the past and what we know has to be done in the future, it will be a challenge to meet those dates,” said Steven D. Roetger, the lead analyst for the PSC.

Read the whole article: Georgia Report

The state creating the most green jobs is…Georgia?

by Anne Fisher

Decatur Self Storage’s array of solar cells Photograph by David Tulis — AP

7/7/15 — An unlikely political alliance in the Peach State has produced a big spike in solar projects.

Green employment in the U.S. is tiny, but it keeps picking up steam. In the first three months of 2015, about 40 new renewable energy and clean transportation projects were launched in 19 states, creating more than 9,800 jobs.

That’s not many, but it’s almost double the number created in the first quarter last year, notes a new report from Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2), a nonprofit, nonpartisan business group that tracks green employment. Solar power openings grew the most, adding about 6,600 jobs nationwide — about 2,000 of them from five new projects in Georgia.

Read the whole article: Fortune

Georgia Power Getting into the Solar Panel Financing Business

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by Gloria Tatum
ATLANTA 6/26/15 — July 01, 2015, is going to be a big day. The Solar Power Free-Market Financing Act, HB 57, sponsored by State Rep. Mike Dudgeon (R-Johns Creek), will go into effect, thus opening up solar panel options for Georgia residents and businesses.

On the same day, Georgia Power is planning to announce that one of its unregulated subsidiaries is going to get into the solar panel installation business.

Read the whole article: Atlanta Progressive News

More Construction Delays Put Focus on Vogtle Project’s Economics

ENRSE_VogtleDelays

by Scott Judy
ENR 6/24/15 — As continuing construction delays cause financing and related costs to mount, time is starting to put “significant” strain upon the Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion project’s economics, according to recent testimony presented to the Georgia Public Service Commission by Georgia Power, state monitors and others. As a result, considerable discussion at the recent June hearings focused on whether completing the nuclear project still makes economic sense.

Read the whole article: ENRSoutheast

Activists Ask Regulators To Reconsider Nuclear Power Units

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by Molly Samuel
ATLANTA 6/23/15 — Activists are asking Georgia’s energy regulators to reconsider building new nuclear power units at Plant Vogtle. The plant expansion is expected to be complete in 2020 – three years behind schedule.

Georgia Power has to go to the Public Service Commission every six months to get its expenses for construction at Vogtle approved. Right now, the last half of 2014 is under consideration. The PSC holds hearings to find out what’s going on at the plant, then lets Georgia Power pay its contractors.

Outside groups also get to weigh in. On Tuesday, Glenn Carroll, a coordinator for Nuclear Watch South, asked the PSC to consider stopping the process entirely.

“We think the public deserves to know what it would cost to cancel Plant Vogtle and compare that to the $12 billion we have left to spend,” she said.

Read the whole article: WABE 90.1 FM Atlanta’s NPR Station

Nuclear Energy Renaissance Takes Another Blow and May Never Recover

by Travis Hoium
2/7/15 — The nuclear renaissance some people hoped for took another big step backward this week when the Vogtle Nuclear Power Plant said it would be delayed another 18 months and cost at least $720 more than the $14.5 billion previously expected.

Nearly every nuclear plant that’s been proposed in the U.S. in the last decade has run into major cost overruns and delays, and without government support, the nuclear renaissance may already be dead. But the latest delay casts a shadow over an energy source that’s becoming increasing uncompetitive in today’s energy landscape.

Read the whole article: The Motley Fool

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Repeal Georgia Nuclear Tax