ATLANTA – Georgia Power has announced a further delay in completing the nuclear expansion at the Vogtle plant.
This story also appeared on the Capitol Beat News Service
The first of two new reactors that are being built at the facility south of Augusta will not go into operation until the third quarter of next year, the Atlanta-based utility announced on October 21. According to the revised schedule, the second block will be postponed to the second quarter of 2023.
In both cases, this means an additional three-month delay for two reactors that were originally supposed to be completed in 2016 and 2017.
Georgia Power blamed the delay on the additional time it took to address ongoing construction challenges and the extensive testing required to ensure quality and safety standards were met.
“As we said at the start of this project, we will build these units the right way without compromising safety or quality, in order to keep to a schedule,” said Chris Womack, Georgia Power chairman, president and CEO.
“We have endured and overcome some extraordinary circumstances in the construction of the first new nuclear units in the United States in more than 30 years. Despite these challenges, the progress made at the site was steady and evident. “
The project was originally scheduled to cost $ 14 billion, but has nearly doubled after years of delays and cost overruns. A major factor driving costs up was the bankruptcy of prime contractor Westinghouse and its replacement with Southern Nuclear, such as Georgia Power, a subsidiary of Atlanta-based Southern Co.
The recent delay, announced by Georgia Power in July, drove the project’s capital cost up $ 460 million.
The state commission for the public service is to vote this month on how much of the assembly costs for the first of the new reactors the energy supplier can pass on to the customers.
A tentative agreement announced last week would allow Georgia Power to pass on an additional $ 2.1 billion. However, the utility would not be allowed to cover these costs until one month after the first reactor went into commercial operation.
Together, once operational, the two reactors will power more than 500,000 Georgia homes and businesses. With more than 7,000 workers on site, the Vogtle plant expansion is the largest construction project in the country.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a Georgia Press Educational Foundation project.
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