Tag Archives: Georgia legislature

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

by 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

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
January 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

Ratepayer Robbery: Plant Vogtle’s Units 3 and 4

RATEPAYER 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

Vogtle’s fate no clearer after tense negotiations

by 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

Crucial partner in Georgia nuclear project calls for cost cap

by 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

Georgia General Assembly Votes to Sunset CWIP

3/27/18 ATLANTA — Representatives of the Stop CWIP Coalition delivered a petition containing more than 3,000 signatures to Governor Nathan Deal’s office in support of the recent passage of Senate Bill 355 to sunset the Georgia Nuclear Energy Financing Act of 2009 with the Vogtle 3 & 4 project. The bill is awaiting the governor’s signatures to become law.

In 2013 several groups launched the Stop CWIP Campaign with a petition drive to repeal the 2009 law. The groups forming the Stop CWIP Coalition are: ARRP (Aging Raging Rate Payers), Atlanta Grandmothers for Peace, Center for a Sustainable Coast, Georgia WAND (Women’s Action for New Directions) and Nuclear Watch South.

The groups delivered the petition entitled “Stop the Nuclear CWIP Tax” in support of Governor Deal’s anticipated signature to ratify Senate Bill 355 which sunsets the Georgia Nuclear Energy Financing Act of 2009. The controversial law legalized collection of advance payments for Vogtle 3 & 4 which are under construction in Burke County. The nuclear tariff has been charged on residential and small business electric bills since 2011. The additional Vogtle reactors are currently less than half-built and are at least $5 billion over budget and five years behind schedule. Senate Bill 355 easily passed both the Senate and the House and now awaits Governor Deal’s signature.

Read the whole article: Nuclear Watch South

Watered down Plant Vogtle bill passes General Assembly

by Dave Williams
ATLANTA 3/20/18: Utilities building future nuclear power plants in Georgia will not be able to collect financing costs from ratepayers before the projects are completed without the approval of the General Assembly.

The Georgia House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill containing that provision on Wednesday. The measure already had passed the Senate overwhelmingly late last month.

The original version of the legislation introduced into the state Senate in January was aimed at Georgia Power Co.’s nuclear expansion at Plant Vogtle. It would have prohibited the Atlanta-based utility from continuing to recover financing costs associated with the long delayed, over-budget project after the original timetable for completing the work had arrived.

Since the original completion dates for two additional nuclear reactors being built at the plant south of Augusta, Ga., have passed, the measure effectively would have repealed the nuclear “tariff” Georgia Power collects on customer bills each month.

However, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Hufstetler, R-Rome, the bill’s chief sponsor agreed to remove Plant Vogtle from the legislation as a condition to getting it through the Senate Regulated Industries and Utilities Committee.

As a result, the final version of the bill applies only to any future nuclear plants Georgia Power or any other utility may contemplate building in Georgia. The legislation now goes to Gov. Nathan Deal.

Read the whole article: Atlanta Business Chronicle

Effort to end financing law gains steam in Ga.

by Kristi Swartz
ATLANTA 2/27/18 — A bill that would end the controversial financing law that’s being used to expand Plant Vogtle passed the Georgia Senate yesterday.

The measure would apply only to future nuclear reactors and would not affect Georgia Power Co.’s Plant Vogtle expansion project. Still, while the proposal (S.B. 355) does no immediate financial harm to Georgia Power, a unit of energy giant Southern Co., it carries major political significance.

Georgia Power is a political heavyweight at the state Capitol. The utility had roughly six dozen lobbyists help move the Georgia Nuclear Energy Financing Act through the Legislature in 2009, allowing the electric company to bill customers for Vogtle’s reactors as they were being built.

At the time, Georgia Power and nuclear supporters argued that doing so would pay down interest costs and save customers money over time. It would also send a signal to Wall Street that the Peach State stood behind Georgia Power building the nation’s first nuclear project from scratch in nearly 30 years.

Vogtle is now the lone nuclear project under construction in the U.S. It is years behind schedule and billions above its forecast budget. The financing costs have now roughly doubled, causing many to question whether the Legislature needed to review the 2009 law.

“If you had asked me at the beginning of the session if any legislation would move in this area, I’d say, ‘Absolutely not,’” said state Sen. Josh McKoon, a Republican from Columbus. “It’s one thing to stir up a hornet’s nest. It’s another to constructively engage Georgia Power, the other players, to come up with something that moves public policy in a direction that [the bill's sponsor] and I think it should be moving in.”

Read the whole article: E&E News

Utility lending bill runs into opposition

by Jill Nolan
DALTON 2/23/18: A proposal to let local governments borrow money for electric utility projects without a public vote has run into resistance at the state Capitol.

The statewide bill is essentially tailored for Dalton Utilities, which owns 1.6 percent of the costly Plant Vogtle expansion project. The utility wants state lawmakers to eliminate a public referendum that is currently required before they can issue bonds for electric system-related projects.

Dalton Utilities’ chief executive officer, Tom Bundros, told lawmakers Friday that the utility does not need to borrow money to cover its share of the cost to finish two new nuclear reactors at Vogtle near Waynesboro. That project is years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget.

Bundros said the utility’s share, which is expected to run another $80 million, would come from “internally generated cash flow.” He also said the utility does not anticipate the need to borrow money for the next five years.

“Well, if you don’t want to borrow any more money, why do you need this?” said Rep. Penny Houston, R-Nashville.

Read the whole article: Daily Citizen-News

Ga. panel votes to scrap project financing law with Vogtle carve-out

by Kristi Swartz
ATLANTA 2/16/18 — A Georgia Senate panel swiftly passed a bill that ends a controversial financing law for nuclear power plants but leaves Georgia Power Co.’s Plant Vogtle expansion project alone.

The measure is a pared-down version of a bill (S.B. 355) that would limit how much Georgia Power could profit from Vogtle, whose reactors are years behind schedule and billions of dollars above their original forecast budget. Georgia Power — known for its political muscle at the Capitol — did not oppose the new version passed yesterday.

Consumer advocates also did not testify but said after the meeting they hoped this measure would open the door for future inquiries by the Legislature.

“We remain hopeful that the Legislature will continue to look at the issues, and as they dig deeper, they will realize that we need to do something more,” Liz Coyle, executive director of Georgia Watch, said in an interview after yesterday’s Georgia Senate Regulated Industries and Utilities Committee hearing. “At least we can say that something has gotten done where the Legislature is acknowledging that we can’t just keep this going unchecked.”