Tag Archives: Southern Company

Vendors line up to demand returns from Westinghouse

by Kristi E. Swartz
4/20/2017: Roughly 30 vendors have asked Westinghouse Electric Co. to return $35 million in materials and products that the mega-contractor ordered for four nuclear reactors in Georgia and South Carolina before the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, documents show.

At issue are “reclamation of claim” letters, which are routine during a matter of bankruptcy. Broadly, they allow vendors to ask that unpaid materials and goods ordered within 45 days of a bankruptcy filing be set aside and returned.

Read the whole story: E&E News

Cost of Westinghouse collapse turns up heat on Scana, Southern

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by Kristi Swartz
4/14/17: Scana Corp. executives might extend a contract with Westinghouse Electric Co. LLC as the utility decides whether to complete its multibillion-dollar nuclear power expansion in South Carolina.

Meanwhile, Southern Co.’s Georgia Power unit has yet to decide whether it needs more time to figure out how to proceed with its twin reactors under construction in Georgia.

Read the whole story: E&E News

‘Every option’ being looked at for Plant Vogtle after contractor’s bankruptcy

by Russell Grantham
ATLANTA 3/30/17: A day after its key contractor filed bankruptcy, Georgia Power said Thursday it is looking at all options for what to do with its unfinished Plant Vogtle nuclear project.

“Every option is on the table,” Georgia Power attorney Kevin Green told members of the Georgia Public Service Commission, which regulates the Atlanta-based utility.

Westinghouse Electric, which is supplying the reactors and overseeing construction of two new reactors at Plant Vogtle near Augusta, filed for Chapter 11 Wednesday, largely as a result of billions in losses on the Vogtle project and another in South Carolina.

Read the whole article: Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Time for a nuclear apology from your power company

by Matt Kempner
ATLANTA 3/29/17: Sometimes, even rah-rah cheerleading isn’t enough to make a bad situation look good.

That’s a shame for Georgia Power, because the CEO of its parent has tried to make the company’s nuclear misadventure look like a puffy cloud on a pretty spring day.

Four years ago, when the project to expand nuclear power at Plant Vogtle was already more than a year and a half behind schedule, Southern Co. chief executive Tom Fanning declared that work was moving along in “spectacular fashion.” The company said no further delays were expected on the complex .

Last year, with delays and costs having grown dramatically, Fanning said work on the two new nuclear units was going “beautifully.”

Read the whole story: Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Regulators order end to Kemper rate increase, plan refunds

JACKSON, Miss. 7/7/1 – Regulators on Tuesday ordered Mississippi Power Co. to lower rates later this month and plan for customer refunds by November.

In issuing the order, the Mississippi Public Service Commission voted 3-0 to comply with a state Supreme Court order that found illegal a 2013 rate increase for the $6.2 billion plant.

Read the whole article: The Sun Herald

Regulators Discuss Kemper Refunds for Miss. Power Customers

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JACKSON, Miss. (AP) 7/7/15 — Mississippi regulators plan to discuss at a Tuesday meeting how to obey a state Supreme Court order to refund about $350 million that Mississippi Power Co. has collected from customers to build a power plant in Kemper County.

The Supreme Court ruled in February that an 18 percent rate increase was illegal because regulators didn’t conduct hearings to ensure Mississippi Power was spending prudently on the $6.2 billion Kemper plant. It also ruled that regulators used an illegal rate structure, didn’t notify all ratepayers and broke public meetings law by negotiating a deal in private.

The Public Service Commission, Mississippi Power and some business groups asked the court to reconsider, but the court reaffirmed its ruling in June.

Now, commissioners must sort out how the refunds will be issued.

Read the whole article: The Jackson Free Press

Georgia Power Getting into the Solar Panel Financing Business

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by Gloria Tatum
ATLANTA 6/26/15 — July 01, 2015, is going to be a big day. The Solar Power Free-Market Financing Act, HB 57, sponsored by State Rep. Mike Dudgeon (R-Johns Creek), will go into effect, thus opening up solar panel options for Georgia residents and businesses.

On the same day, Georgia Power is planning to announce that one of its unregulated subsidiaries is going to get into the solar panel installation business.

Read the whole article: Atlanta Progressive News

Southern Power passes 400 megawatts of solar power in Georgia

BUTLER 6/24/15 — Southern Power bought the 20-megawatt Butler Solar Farm from Strata Solar, bringing its total solar generation development in the Peach State to more than 400 megawatts.

The unit of Atlanta-based Southern Co. (NYSE: SO) did not disclose financial terms.

The latest acquisition will be on 150 acres in Taylor County, Ga., about one mile from the previously acquired 103-megawatt Butler Solar Facility. The Butler Solar Farm is expected to enter commercial operation in the fourth quarter of 2015. It will use more than 263,000 of First Solar Inc.’s thin-film photovoltaic solar modules.

Read the whole article: Atlanta Business Chronicle

More Construction Delays Put Focus on Vogtle Project’s Economics

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by Scott Judy
ENR 6/24/15 — As continuing construction delays cause financing and related costs to mount, time is starting to put “significant” strain upon the Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion project’s economics, according to recent testimony presented to the Georgia Public Service Commission by Georgia Power, state monitors and others. As a result, considerable discussion at the recent June hearings focused on whether completing the nuclear project still makes economic sense.

Read the whole article: ENRSoutheast

Activists Ask Regulators To Reconsider Nuclear Power Units

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by Molly Samuel
ATLANTA 6/23/15 — Activists are asking Georgia’s energy regulators to reconsider building new nuclear power units at Plant Vogtle. The plant expansion is expected to be complete in 2020 – three years behind schedule.

Georgia Power has to go to the Public Service Commission every six months to get its expenses for construction at Vogtle approved. Right now, the last half of 2014 is under consideration. The PSC holds hearings to find out what’s going on at the plant, then lets Georgia Power pay its contractors.

Outside groups also get to weigh in. On Tuesday, Glenn Carroll, a coordinator for Nuclear Watch South, asked the PSC to consider stopping the process entirely.

“We think the public deserves to know what it would cost to cancel Plant Vogtle and compare that to the $12 billion we have left to spend,” she said.

Read the whole article: WABE 90.1 FM Atlanta’s NPR Station

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