Monthly Archives: February 2022

Plant Vogtle hits new delays; costs surge near $30B

Vogtle Georgia Power
The Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion project in Georgia is pictured last month. Georgia Power

By Kristi E. Swartz
02/18/2022    Southern Co. yesterday announced another delay for its long-troubled nuclear construction project in Georgia, edging its costs closer to the $30 billion mark.

The setback could now push the startup date for Plant Vogtle’s first reactor until early 2023 and move the date for the second one to later that year. The costs for Plant Vogtle’s two reactors have now risen to the point that Southern should absorb every dollar instead of sharing that burden with the other developers — and passing it on to customers.

Plant Vogtle’s latest move highlights the nuclear industry’s chief troubles with building large, baseload reactors: safety and cost. To be clear, Southern executives have blamed this new hiccup on paperwork, saying that workers were gathering it to send to federal safety regulators and noticed critical inspection records were missing or incomplete.

The pile of missing or incomplete documents added up to a delay of three to six months, Southern said. That additional time is costing $920 million.

“We’re a little frustrated with the latest developments,” Southern Co. CEO Tom Fanning said yesterday in an interview. “[The first unit] is on the doorstep of loading fuel and going into service.”

Fanning talked of “great momentum” at the construction site since November. He said the company was looking forward to receiving the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s permission to load fuel rods into the reactor, the last major step before it can start producing electricity.

But workers realized “tens of thousands” of critical documents were missing, leading to a three-month backlog, Fanning said. Officials have cut that time down by 30 percent, he added.

“We’re fixing that part of the ‘paper’ process,” he told E&E News.

Read the whole article: E&E News

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Plant Vogtle delays and ballooning costs since 2012 unveiling like ‘groundhog day’

VOGTLE-1by Stanley Dunlap
2/18/2022   Further setbacks at the snakebit Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion are reportedly expected to result in delays lasting up to six months while the operator added a $920 million charge at the end of last year.

Thomas Fanning, president and CEO of Southern Co., said during Thursday’s earnings call that the parent company of Georgia Power took past repeated disruptions and challenges into account when it revised this timeline for completing the plant’s two final units, with the latest mishap caused by incomplete and missing inspection records that resulted in a backlog of more than 10,000 records.

The completion of the third and fourth reactors at Plant Vogtle, chiefly owned by Southern and its subsidiary Georgia Power, is now projected to be delayed three-to-six months, with the third unit coming on line in March 2023 and the final reactor ready by the end of the year, according to Southern’s report.

“Over the last year a number of challenges including shortcomings, and construction and documentation quality have continued to emerge, adding to project timelines and costs,” Fanning said. “In recognition of the possibility for new challenges to emerge, we further risk adjusted our current forecast by establishing a range of three to six additional months for each unit, and we’ve reserved for the maximum amount.”

Read the whole article: Georgia Recorder

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$30B Georgia Power nuclear plant delayed up to 6 more months

Nuclear Plant-Georgia
U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry speaks during a press event at the construction site of Vogtle Units 3 and 4 at the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant, Friday, March 22, 2019 in Waynesboro, Ga. Georgia Power Co.’s parent company announced more cost overruns and schedule delays to the project on Thursday, Feb. 17, 2022. Credit: Hyosub Shin/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP

AP 2/17/2022   Georgia Power Co. now says the first of two nuclear reactors it’s building at Plant Vogtle near Augusta might not begin generating electricity until as late as March 2023 and the reactors will cost their owners nearly $30 billion.

Southern Co., the Atlanta-based parent of the Georgia utility, made the announcements as it released its annual earnings Thursday. The parent company took a further $920 million loss on the reactors and warned it could have to write off another $460 million depending on how a dispute with Vogtle co-owners turns out.

With the charge-offs, Southern Co. said it lost $215 million in the fourth quarter, or 20 cents per share, while earning a profit of $2.39 billion, or $2.26 per share, for the year.

Vogtle is the only nuclear plant under construction in the United States, and its costs could deter other utilities from building such plants, even though they generate electricity without releasing climate changing carbon emissions.

Georgia Power’s 2.6 million customers are already paying the financing cost of the third and fourth reactors at Vogtle on monthly bills, a total of $3.5 billion through December 2020. Customers could be asked to pay $680 million of the additional construction and financing costs recorded Thursday, although ultimately that will be up to regulators at the Georgia Public Service Commission.

Read the whole article: WABE

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UPDATE: Georgia’s Vogtle nuclear expansion hit with new delays, costs

VORJJTDGA5YHYUGOXRY7AT2JWIBy Tamar Hallerman
2/17/2022    Southern Company, the electric utility overseeing the beleaguered Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion near Augusta, said Thursday that the project is being delayed once again as costs continue to climb.

That raises the possibility the company’s roughly 2.6 million Georgia Power customers, already on the hook for billions of dollars, will pay even more to finance the first big nuclear project in the U.S. in decades. The project is already several years late and billions over budget.

Atlanta-based Southern, the parent of Georgia Power, disclosed Thursday a $920 million financial charge in the fourth quarter of 2021 related to Vogtle. It also pushed back the startup dates for its two new nuclear units in Georgia by three to six months.

The plant’s new Unit 3 is now slated to come online between December 2022 and March 2023. Unit 4 is scheduled to be operational between September 2023 and December 2023.

Southern partially attributed the latest delay to incomplete and missing inspection records, which are required for the plant to load nuclear fuel. It said it reduced the backlog by more than 30% in recent weeks as it works its way through tens of thousands of records for materials and equipment installed in the first of its two new units.

Read the whole article: Atlanta Journal-Constitution

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The Only Nuclear Plant Being Built in the U.S. Is Delayed Yet Again

by Will Wade
(Bloomberg) — 2/17/2022    Southern Co.’s beleaguered Vogtle nuclear project is getting pushed back again after the company discovered documentation issues that will delay completion by as much as six months, prompting a $920 million charge.

The Unit 3 reactor may not go into service until March 2023 and Unit 4 may not be complete until the end of next year, Chief Executive Officer Thomas Fanning said in an interview Thursday.

The delays are yet another setback for the only nuclear plant under construction in the U.S. The Vogtle project in Georgia is now about seven years behind schedule and costs have doubled. The project will be the first new nuclear units built in the country in the last three decades.

“I’m frustrated,” Fanning, 64, said. “Every day when I get up I have Vogtle on my mind.”

Read the whole article: BNN Bloomberg

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