Tag Archives: Vogtle

Unofficial Business: Ga. Power scopes out new nuke, at our expense

022215-nuke-price-bs11by Matt Kempner
ATLANTA 6/7/16 — Some really great deals are only great if someone else pays for them.

The state’s largest power company has just such a deal for us.

Georgia Power insists it’s really important and prudent to spend nearly $175 million so the company can investigate building a nuclear plant on land it owns south of Columbus in Stewart County. Executives testified that the investment is “in the best interest of its customers.”

But that certainty magically evaporates if Georgia Power has to pay for the exploration itself.

The company – a government-regulated monopoly — said last week that it would pull the plug on its review if state regulators don’t allow it to charge Georgia Power customers for the entire cost of the exploration. Customers should pay even if a plant is never built on the site, according to the company. Those costs would be incorporated in monthly power bills eventually.

Read the whole article: Atlanta Journal & Constitution

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PSC’s McDonald: Non-existent nuke shouldn’t cost customers $175 million

022215-nuke-price-bs8-2

by Russell Grantham
ATLANTA 6/3/16 —At least one of Georgia’s utility regulators says he doesn’t think Georgia Power’s customers should have to foot a $175 million bill up front to study a potential site for a new nuclear plant near Columbus.

Commissioner Lauren “Bubba” McDonald told fellow members of the Public Service Commission Thursday that he plans to introduce a motion in the future that would deny the company’s request for the study funding.

McDonald said his motion wouldn’t prevent Georgia Power from going ahead with the study, but it’s “premature” to ask customers to pay for it before 2019.

Read the whole article: Atlanta Journal-Constitution

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Unofficial Business: Georgia Power aims to dump its overruns on you

022215-nuke-price-bs18by Matt Kempner
ATLANTA 4/13/16 — What do you call overruns on a project that’s more than three years delayed and at least $1.7 billion over budget?

Reasonable and prudent. At least if you are Georgia Power and you want customers to swallow every penny of the mistakes that would otherwise be the utility monopoly’s responsibility for its adventures in nuclear expansion.

“Every dollar, and every day, that has been invested has been necessary to complete these new units safely and correctly,” Georgia Power CEO Paul Bowers asserted in a recent filing to state regulators.

The company uses the words “prudent” and “reasonable” a lot in the filing because that’s the legal measure of whether the extra costs can be pushed onto customers’ monthly power bills for the company’s troubled Plant Vogtle expansion.

Read the whole article: Atlanta Journal-Constitution

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HB 931 seeks end to ratepayer subsidy of nuclear construction in Georgia

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by Gloria Tatum
(APN) ATLANTA 2/17/16 — A pro-consumer bill, HB 931, co-sponsored by State Rep. Karla Drenner (D-Avondale), calls for an end to the Nuclear Construction Cost Recovery (NCCR) surcharge on Georgia Power electric bills after March 2017.

NCCR is a statewide surcharge that all Georgia Power residential and small business electricity customers pay every month.

It is about eight percent of one’s total bill with additional periodic rate increases.

Georgia Power’s two new nuclear reactors, Vogtle 3 and 4, originally were scheduled for completion in 2017, and at that time the surcharge was to expire.

However, Georgia Power is over three years behind schedule, and almost three billion dollars over-budget, with only 26 percent of the construction complete.

Read the whole article: Atlanta Progressive News

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Renewables rise in Georgia Power plan

Southern-AGL.JPEG-0b4bdby Russell Grantham
ATLANTA 2/13/16 — Renewable fuels are poised to grow from a footnote into a small but meaningful part of the picture at Georgia’s biggest electric utility.

By 2020 solar, wind, biomass and hydro will account for 10 percent of Georgia Power’s fuel mix, according to a new long-term plan the company recently filed with state regulators. That’s up from about 7 percent this year, or just 2 percent not counting hydro. In 2005, non-hydro renewables were not even counted in the mix.

Critics say the pace is still too slow. And at least one questions the utility’s overall goal of boosting its capacity buffer — the extra juice it could generate during a severe heat wave or power outages — at a time when demand has been flattened by slower economic growth and better efficiency.

Read the whole article: Atlanta Journal-Constitution

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Bill calls for halt on Plant Vogtle charge

GranthamRussellby Russell Grantham
ATLANTA 2/9/16 — A trio of Georgia lawmakers want to block Georgia Power from levying surcharges on customers’ bills to finance its long-delayed Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion after 2017.

“Today’s Georgia Power customers stand to pay $1.4 billion more to finance Vogtle construction over the next few years due to major construction delays,” said Rep. Karla Drenner, D-Avondale Estates, sponsor of a bill filed Monday.

In 2009, lawmakers allowed the utility to begin tacking a surcharge on customers’ bills to finance its share of the cost to build two additional nuclear power units at Plant Vogtle near Augusta. The monthly surcharges add about $81 to the typical residential customer’s annual utility bill.

Read the whole article: Atlanta Journal-Constitution

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Are our Georgia Power bills set to be nuked?

022215-nuke-price-bs8by Matt Kempner
ATLANTA 2/8/16 — Warm up your checkbook and get your debit and credit cards ready. Reckoning day is coming on the most gigantic construction project in Georgia and, in particular, on its blown budget.

This spring the expansion of the Vogtle nuclear power plant near Augusta was supposed to be finished, with the first of two new reactors cranking out electricity for businesses and homes all over Georgia.

Not going to happen.

Read the whole article: Atlanta Journal-Constitution

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PSC votes to begin review of Plant Vogtle costs

15093461by Walter C. Jones
ATLANTA 2/3/16 — Electricity customers and the public will get a detailed look at what’s to blame for cost overruns in the construction of two nuclear reactors slated for power generation after a divided Public Service Commission voted Tuesday to begin its examination.

Also, one commissioner called on the legislature to make Georgia Power stop billing customers for the reactors because construction is about to exceed the original completion date.

The detailed probe of what Georgia Power has spent is expected to take 14 months to examine the delays that have added nearly $1 billion to the Plant Vogtle expansion.

Read the whole article: Savannah Morning News

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Georgia Power seeks approval of higher costs at Plant Vogtle

15066713by Walter C. Jones
ATLANTA 1/23/16 — Georgia Power Company wants regulators to bless its share in more than $900 million in cost overruns incurred so far in building two nuclear reactors at the Plant Vogtle generating facility near Augusta.

The company denies its request amounts to approval of the overruns. At least one regulator said his agency can ignore the request until the reactors are generating electricity. And he estimates the impact of the request to be as high as $2.5 billion in added costs to electricity customers.
Company lawyers filed a formal request Thursday seeking approval by the Public Service Commission of the utility’s contract with the new builders.

Georgia Power, which owns 45.7 percent of Vogtle, and the utilities that own the rest of the plant signed an agreement with Westinghouse and with Chicago Bridge & Iron’s Stone & Webster division to design and build two reactors for $6.8 billion. Various problems led to delays and cost overruns, prompting the owners and the builders to sue each in other in 2013 over who would pay the added costs.

Read the whole article: Augusta Chronicle

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Georgians, get ready for a power bill sticker shock

vogtle73015by Tom Crawford
Gainesville, GA 12/16/15 — In the 1970s, Georgia Power started work on two nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle near Waynesboro. It was initially estimated that the two units would cost $660 million and take about seven years to build. In fact, the project took nine more years and cost more than $8 billion by the time the reactors actually started generating electricity.

The lesson should have been clear: Nuclear power is very expensive and has significant safety issues, as well. Surely, Georgia Power and the Public Service Commission would be extremely leery about ever approving such a project again.

Read the whole article: Gainesville Times

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