Tag Archives: MEAG

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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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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Vogtle passes latest hurdle

5ba55bfeec385.imageby Ross Williams
9/24/18 SANDY SPRINGS — The $27 billion Plant Vogtle, America’s only new nuclear power plant under construction, has survived is latest challenge.

Two of the plant’s owners, Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia, or MEAG, and Oglethorpe Power, voted to move forward with the plan Monday.

MEAG provides electricity to its 49-member communities, including Marietta and Acworth. Oglethorpe supplies electricity to 39 of Georgia’s 41 electric membership corporations, including Cobb EMC, although Cobb EMC is not participating in the Plant Vogtle expansion. Oglethorpe did not respond to multiple requests asking where, when and whether a vote would take place.

MEAG passed it unanimously around 3 p.m., and Oglethorpe followed at about 8 p.m. with what it called a “conditional vote in support.” The utility said it will support continuing with the project if certain conditions are met, including an agreement to freeze the budget at its current place.

Read the whole article: Marietta Daily Journal

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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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Contract dispute threatens $27bn Vogtle nuclear project

Vogtleconstructionby Ed Crooks
9/13/18 NEW YORK — A legal battle has flared up over the only new nuclear power plant under construction in the US, raising questions about the $27bn project’s future.

Companies involved in the plan to build two reactors in Georgia have sued each other over a contract to buy electricity from the plant, as communities argue over who should bear the rising cost of the project. The outcome of the dispute will have implications for the nuclear industry in the US and internationally.

The two Westinghouse AP1000 reactors being built at the Vogtle power plant in Georgia have been hit by delays and cost overruns, but the companies leading the project are still pressing ahead with construction.

However, the city of Jacksonville in Florida and its electric utility JEA, which had agreed to buy power from the plant for 20 years, are attempting to escape from that contract. In a filing at a Florida court on Wednesday, the city argued that the 2008 agreement to buy power from the plant was in breach of state law and therefore unenforceable.

In their filing, Jacksonville and JEA said the contract “purports to saddle JEA and its ratepayers with an unlimited obligation to fund the exorbitant and ever-ballooning cost of constructing units of a nuclear power plant that JEA does not own.”

Read the whole article: Financial Times

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JEA sues, and is sued, over fate of expensive nuclear project

Vogtle_cranesby Nate Monroe
9/12/18 JACKSONVILLE: Jacksonville’s electric utility and City Hall filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to void a controversial decade-old agreement obligating local ratepayers to help build and eventually buy power from two planned nuclear reactors in Georgia, a significant escalation in a fight over the future of the only active nuclear power project in the United States.

The Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia, one of the co-owners of the Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion project, also filed a federal lawsuit against JEA on Tuesday accusing the Jacksonville electric agency of having “a clear intent to breach its contract, abandon its obligations” and to “undermine and disrupt” the future of the project.

The dueling lawsuits cap off weeks of tension between the two agencies.

JEA has sought for months to get out of the 2008 purchase-power agreement it signed with the authority, the subject of acidic letters the two agencies have traded in recent weeks. Since the project began — a run of years during which the federal government supported nuclear power, and the industry’s prospects seemed much brighter — the Vogtle expansion has seen a number of cost overruns and delays. JEA’s obligations have ballooned with it.

JEA’s financial obligations likely top $2.25 billion over the 20-year life of the agreement.

Read the whole article: Florida Times-Union

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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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