Tag Archives: Georgia Power

Activists Push Co-owner, MEAG, to End the Insanity of Vogtle Units 3, 4

MEAG-1by Gloria Tatum
9/22/18 APN – On Thursday, September 20, 2018, activists insisted that the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia (MEAG), a minority co-owner of the pending two new nuclear reactors 3 and 4 at Plant Vogtle, finally abandon the insanity that is their continued involvement in the project.

Since the previous report by Atlanta Progressive News on the Vogtle co-owners, Jacksonville Electric Authority (JEA) has now sued MEAG over the exploding financial cost of continuing construction on Plant Vogtle 3 and 4.

JEA wants out of its Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) which it has with MEAG to buy energy from Vogtle 3 and 4 for the next twenty years.

JEA claims that Vogtle has become too expensive and they can get energy cheaper from other companies in Georgia.

At the MEAG Power Board Meeting, JEA offered MEAG a way out of the Vogtle money vortex and still meet its contractual obligations to the co-owners and PPA partners.

Read the whole article: Atlanta Progressive News

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Vogtle nuke faces new vote as muni lawsuit puts construction at risk

7dec2074a824c355b09bf37e588ca45eby Robert Walton
9/14/18 UTILITY DIVE

Dive Brief:

  • Rising costs for the development of two new nuclear units at the Vogtle plant in Georgia have spawned dueling lawsuits between an owner of the project and a municipal utility that claims it never signed up for the perpetual cost increases — and if it did, it shouldn’t have been allowed to.
  • Jacksonville Electric Authority (JEA) has asked a Duval County, Fla., circuit court to find a 2008 power purchase agreement (PPA) to be unenforceable, claiming it violates the state’s constitution, laws and public policy, and the city’s elected leadership had not given its blessing to the deal.
  • Development of Units 3 and 4 was initially expected to cost $7.3 billion but over the years that price tag has ballooned to more than $27 billion. According to the Augusta Chronicle, JEA’s obligations over the 20-year life of its agreement could be more than $2 billion.

    Dive Insight:

    JEA is showing signs of buyer’s remorse, but given the nearly 400% cost increase it’s hard to blame the municipal utility.

    JEA is suing one of Vogtle’s owners, the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia (MEAG), requesting a declaratory judgment that the PPA they agreed to cannot be enforced. The utility argues the Jacksonville City Council did not approve the deal; JEA’s board overstepped its authority in making the arrangement; and Florida law prohibits the contract.

    Read the whole article: Utility Dive

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A Crack in Co-owner Support for Vogtle, as Costs Skyrocket

vogtle-1-2-3-4by Gloria Tatum
9/8/18 (APN) ATLANTA — As the cost projections for the nuclear reactors 3 and 4 at Plant Vogtle continue to skyrocket, co-owner support for Plant Vogtle is on increasingly shaky ground, especially as credit rating agencies are talking downgrades based upon the instability of cost projections around finishing the reactors.

Georgia Power’s announcement last month of an unexpected increase of 2.3 billion dollars more to complete Vogtle 3 and 4 has triggered confusion and the requirement for a vote by each of the co-owners on whether to continue participating in the project by late September 2018.

Georgia Power cannot assure that the price will not continue to go up or that the service date will not continue to be kicked down the road by ongoing delays.

This has spooked both Wall Street and some minority co-owners of Vogtle 3 and 4.

Moody’s Investors Services has already issued a downgrade to Georgia Power’s rating, saying the 2.3 billion dollar increase comes just eight months after the Georgia Public Service Commission signed off on the previous round of increased cost estimates.

Co-owners’ exposure to cost increases has no actual end in sight, and this has consequences for investors.  Additional downgrades for co-owners are expected.

Now, Jacksonville Electric Authority (JEA) wants out of its agreement with Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia (MEAG) to buy power from Plant Vogtle 3 & 4 for the next twenty years and to share in the construction cost.  MEAG is one of the co-owners of Vogtle 3 and 4, owning 22.7 percent of the project.

In addition, Oglethorpe Power–a thirty percent co-owner–will have to nearly exhaust its 490 million dollar contingency fund, according to a company press release.

Read the whole article: Atlanta Progressive News

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Will JEA Force The Shutdown Of Plant Vogtle Nuclear Construction?

19055271-15347976981380727by Michael Wald
8/21/18 WAYNESBORO

Summary

  • Georgia Power’s announcement of a $1.1 billion increase in its nuclear construction project understates the full $2.4 billion increase, which will be picked up by all of the construction partners.
  • One of the partners, MEAG Power, is facing a rebellion from JEA, a Florida utility contracted to buy its Plant Vogtle power.
  • If MEAG Power votes “no”, Georgia Power faces expensive choices of either buying out MEAG’s share or canceling the project altogether. SO shareholders will bear the cost of either choice.

If you listened to Southern Company’s (SO) second quarter earnings call, the news about increased costs for Plant Vogtle Units 3 & 4 was disheartening but not unexpected. Since that call an unhappy Florida utility might be the straw that brings down the project.

Read the whole article: Seeking Alpha

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Georgia General Assembly Votes to Sunset CWIP

stopCWIP_gov3/27/18 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

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Watered down Plant Vogtle bill passes General Assembly

Unknownby 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

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Effort to end financing law gains steam in Ga.

by Kristi SwartzUnknown-2
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

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Lawsuit, Investigation Request Keep PSC, Georgia Power on their Toes

Unknown-2by Gloria Tatum
(APN) ATLANTA 2/15/18 — The Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) is facing a new lawsuit, while Georgia Power is facing a possible investigation – both in connection with challenges to the continued construction of new nuclear reactors 3 and 4 at Plant Vogtle.

Three groups–the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), Partnership for Southern Equity, and Georgia Interfaith Power and Light–have filed a lawsuit in Fulton County Superior Court on Monday, February 12, 2018 against the PSC.

The Petitioners claim the PSC’s December 21, 2017 decision and holiday gift to Georgia Power to continue Vogtle 3 and 4 violated Georgia law and the PSC’s own governing rules, making their decision illegal.

The PSC’s decision ensures Georgia Power Company billions of dollars in additional profits, while saddling ratepayers with billions in additional expenses.

The Commission’s decision put the interest of Georgia Power’s shareholders ahead of the interest of ratepayers, especially low-income customers.

Finally, there is a lawsuit that asserts the obvious – that the so-called “Public Service” Commission is and has been working as an agent of Georgia Power for years instead of protecting the ratepayers.

As previously reported by Atlanta Progressive News, the PSC vote overruled its own staff’s recommendations, which stated that to go forward would hurt ratepayers financially and reward Georgia Power’s bad management with additional profits.

Read the whole article: Atlanta Progressive News

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As Georgia regulators ponder Vogtle’s future, more revelations emerge about its doomed twin in South Carolina

Westinghouse-AP-1000by Tom Baxter
11/13/17 ATLANTA: From a design point of view, the nuclear projects at Plant Vogtle and the V.C. Summer site in South Carolina were identical. They were to be the first in a new generation of U.S. nuclear reactors, the Westinghouse AP1000s, cheaper, easier to build and safer than their predecessors.

After years of costly delays, the fate of the two projects diverged last summer, when the South Carolina utilities funding the Summer project pulled the plug on it, just days after the Georgia Public Service gave the go-ahead for continuing construction at Vogtle, despite the bankruptcy of Westinghouse.

The impact of the Westinghouse debacle has been felt more sharply in South Carolina, where a substantially smaller population of ratepayers is shouldering the enormous costs. One result of this has been a very productive competition between Columbia’s The State and Charleston’s The Post and Courier, both of which have been aggressive in reporting on the regulatory failures that accompanied the engineering blunders on the road to ruin for the Summer project.

Last week, as the Georgia Public Service Commission was holding four days of hearings on the future of the Vogtle project, portable devices were buzzing with the fruits of that effort.

Read the whole article: Saporta Report

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Opinion: An answer for Ga. Power

vogtle_ajcby Jay Bookman
11/13/17 ATLANTA: More than a decade ago, our good friends at Georgia Power conceived the idea of building two new nuclear reactors — the first to be built on U.S. soil in a generation — at its Vogtle site outside Augusta.

Georgia Power recruited the partners it needed from electric co-ops and city utilities around the state. It convinced its obedient servants at the state Public Service Commission to rubber-stamp the project, which they did by a 4-1 vote. (All four “yes” men are still on the PSC  today, still collecting their six-figure salaries, their durability testament to the wisdom of not crossing Georgia Power.)

The company hired the most powerful lobbyists in the state to supplement its own standing army of lobbyists, then strong-armed a law through a compliant state Legislature that forced consumers to start paying for the nuke projects immediately, long before they produced any power. Getting the signature of then-Gov. Sonny Perdue on that bill also proved to be no problem, since the man whom Perdue had hired as his chief of staff happened to have been Georgia Power’s top lobbyist for decades.

Georgia Power chose the design. Georgia Power hired the contractors. Georgia Power assured everyone who would listen that the problems that had long dogged nuclear power — the safety concerns, the massive cost-overruns and construction delays — had been resolved, and that the units would be up and producing power by 2017 just as scheduled. Critics who noted the difficulty and risk of trying to restart a complicated, zero-defect industry from scratch were steamrollered.

The message from the company was steadfast: “Don’t worry, we got this.”

Well no, they didn’t. They were wrong, spectacularly wrong, and their critics have been proved right. Under the original schedule, both new nuclear units should have been producing power by now. Instead, they are less than half built. The cost overruns have been enormous, basically doubling in cost even if nothing further goes wrong. And what is the price to be paid for such failure?

For Georgia Power, the price is none. No price, and to hear Georgia Power tell it, no failure. In a meeting last week with reporters from the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Georgia Power CEO Paul Bowers was asked whether the company deserved any blame or responsibility for imposing this financial catastrophe on the people of Georgia.

“The answer to that question is no,” Bowers said.

No? The answer to that question is no?

Read the whole article: Atlanta Journal-Constitution

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