Category Archives: CWIP News

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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IEEFA U.S.: Price tag for new reactors at Vogtle Plant in Georgia climbs past $30 billion

Delays, mismanagement, overruns may leave Georgia Power ratepayers with enormous cost burden
PrintJanuary 20, 2022 (IEEFA)—Once estimated at more than $14 billion, the price tag for two new reactors at Georgia Power Company’s Plant Vogtle site has now climbed past $30 billion, and both units will be more than six years late in coming online, according to a report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

The Georgia Public Service Commission staff and its nuclear consultants have attributed the project’s massive cost overruns and repeated delays to Georgia Power’s adoption of unreasonable and unachievable construction schedules, as well as its attempts to achieve the schedules at any cost. The issues have been blamed on a corporate culture that values production over quality; poor or non-existent quality inspections; high personnel turnover; and high testing failure rates for an unproven reactor design.

Read the whole report: Institute for Energy Economics & Financial Analysis

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How Georgia nuclear project’s big finish went so wrong

VORJJTDGA5YHYUGOXRY7AT2JWIBy Matt Kempner
ajc.com
12/31/21: Early in 2021, crews at Georgia Power’s nuclear expansion site at Plant Vogtle were struggling to find all the leaks in a pool built to hold spent, highly radioactive fuel.

They added air pressure under the floor of the water-filled pool, hoping air bubbles would pinpoint flawed welds. It didn’t work. So an engineer doubled the air pressure.

The result: The pool’s steel floor plates were damaged, rendering them unusable. New ones had to be manufactured. The fixes and rechecks of the pool have taken nearly a year and cost millions of dollars.

It’s been that kind of a year at Plant Vogtle. Though the expansion project was supposed to be close to completion, a series of missteps and botched jobs in recent months has led to more cost overruns, further delays and fresh worries about quality and oversight.

The project has had setbacks almost since it began. But the 2021 revelations highlight how widespread the problems have become.

Read the whole article: Atlanta Journal-Constitution

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Ratepayer Robbery: Plant Vogtle’s Units 3 and 4

Microsoft Word - Document1RATEPAYER ROBBERY 11/16/21: Plant Vogtle Units 3 and 4 is a research and communication effort designed to promote public understanding and civic accountability. What is meant by accountability? That means holding the Georgia Legislature, the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC), and Georgia Power/Southern Nuclear accountable for decision-making that reflects malfeasance, corporate greed, and commission incompetence and has imposed scandalous and continuous rate increases on Georgia customers. Although the Public Service Commission’s role is in part to protect consumers from monopoly power, they have been woefully remiss in their duties to the people of Georgia. This report will explain how, and why.

Read the whole report: Georgia Conservation Voters Education Fund

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Vogtle’s fate no clearer after tense negotiations

Unknownby Kristi Swartz
9/26/18 The future of the nation’s lone nuclear construction project remained unclear last night as its utility partners continued to negotiate over how to handle its rising costs.

Expenses at Southern Co.’s Plant Vogtle expansion project have jumped $2.3 billion in just one year. Vogtle’s budget is roughly double what it was a decade ago, but the reactors were at a crossroads Monday when one of the business partners said it would walk away unless the construction costs were capped.

That talks among the developers — Southern’s Georgia Power Co., Oglethorpe Power Corp., the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia (MEAG) and Dalton Utilities Inc. — have been extended until 5 p.m. today is a sign that they are trying to keep the reactors going. That is a far cry from yesterday, when Oglethorpe and its utility partners aired their disagreements — and anger — in lengthy public statements.

Read the whole article: E&E News

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Crucial partner in Georgia nuclear project calls for cost cap

newsEngin.23116134_Vogtle-expanse-shotby Matt Kempner and Anastaciah Ondieki
9/24/18 ATLANTA – Dreams of a U.S. nuclear energy renaissance have faded around the country, but a lone project slated to be paid for by Georgia consumers and businesses continues to survive, despite a troubled history and massive cost overruns.

On Monday, the nuclear power expansion of Plant Vogtle cleared another hurdle. Sort of.

But this time a crucial partner in the project wants to cap future cost increases and shift more risk onto the parent of Georgia Power, the largest utility in the state.

The owners of the Vogtle project — representing most of the utilities in Georgia — voted to continue the project despite an additional $2.3 billion in cost overruns. The latest inflation in Vogtle’s pricetag triggered the vote, the second by the owners in a year.

But Oglethorpe Power, which represents electric membership corporations in metro Atlanta and around the state, said its board’s approval depends on concessions by lead owner Georgia Power’s parent, Southern Company.

Oglethorpe said it wants a cap on costs and for Southern to cover any costs above that, rather than sharing them with its co-owners.

Read the whole article: Atlanta Journal-Constitution

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