Years Late and Over Budget, Vogtle Unit 3 Begins Commercial Operations

Written by John Egan for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Professional athletes have a saying: "There are no ugly wins or pretty losses. A 'W' is a 'W' and an 'L' is an 'L'."

By that standard, the four owners of Vogtle Unit 3--Georgia Power Company (Atlanta, Georgia) (45.7% owner), Oglethorpe Power Corporation (Tucker, Georgia) (30%), the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia (MEAG Power) (Atlanta) (22.7%) and Dalton Utilities (Dalton, Georgia) (1.6%)--celebrated a win on July 31 when the Alvin W. Vogtle Nuclear Power Station Unit 3 began commercial operations. But it was an ugly one that came years late and billions of dollars over budget.

The 1,117-megawatt (MW) Vogtle Unit 3 is the first new nuclear generation to come online in the U.S. in seven years. Unit 4 is scheduled to begin operating either late this year or early next year. The two unit additions were the first new-build nuclear generation build in over three decades.

Although the start of commercial operations for Unit 3 was a happy day for the owners, that happiness likely was tempered by the scale of that unit's cost overruns and the yearslong delay. Both Unit 3 and Unit 4 are 1,117-megawatt (MW) Westinghouse AP (advanced passive) reactors. Unit 3 can generate enough electricity for about 500,000 homes and businesses.

The current estimated price tag for the two new nuclear units is about $32 billion, a figure that does not include a $3.7 billion payment made to the co-owners by Westinghouse Electric Company LLC (Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania), after it declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2017. With combined generating capacity of about 2,234 MW, the new installed capacity cost of about $14.3 million per MW is far and away the most expensive power plant ever built.

For more on the Vogtle unit additions, see June 8, 2023, article - Vogtle Unit 3 Could Start Commercial Operations This Month.

But the owners preferred to accentuate the positive on July 31. "The Plant Vogtle 3 & 4 nuclear expansion is another incredible example of how Georgia Power is building a reliable and resilient energy future for our state," said Kim Greene, chairman, president and chief executive of Georgia Power. "It is important that we make these kinds of long-term investments and see them through so we can continue providing clean, safe, reliable and affordable energy to our 2.7 million customers. Today's achievement is a testament to our commitment to doing just that, and it marks the first day of the next 60 to 80 years that Vogtle Unit 3 will serve our customers with clean, reliable energy."

Added Tom Fanning, chairman of the board at Georgia Power parent Southern Company (NYSE:SO) (Atlanta, Georgia): "The Vogtle expansion is an American energy success story and would not be possible without the support of strong public and private partners like our partners at the North America's Building Trades Unions."

"The commercial operation of Vogtle Unit 3 marks a significant achievement for the U.S. nuclear energy industry and a milestone in advancing global clean and reliable energy solutions," Maria Korsnick, chief executive at the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) (Washington, D.C.), said in a statement. "We are thrilled to witness the successful deployment of this Westinghouse AP1000 advanced reactor, which is helping to shape the energy landscape of the future."

A true accounting of the cost for the unit additions, and what the owners' customers will pay, is still some time off. Georgia Power's electricity pieces have reflected partial recovery of the costs of adding two new units at Vogtle, but members of the Georgia Public Service Commission (GPSC) (Atlanta, Georgia) will have to decide how much of Georgia Power's share gets paid by customers and how much the utility will have to absorb. The other three owners are community-owned utilities not regulated by state utility commissions.

At various times over the years, as the price tag to complete Vogtle 3 and 4 continued to rise, some of the owners threatened to exit the project. Some time ago, the other owners filed litigation against Georgia Power to cap their proportional share of construction and financing expenses incurred to get the projects built. That, too, will unfold over the coming months: as Unit 4 is completed and begins commercial operations, the focus will shift from the construction yard at the Waynesboro, Georgia, plant to the hearing rooms of the GPSC and board rooms of the other three co-owners.

And while Vogtle's owners and the nuclear industry celebrated an important milestone with the start of commercial operations for Unit 3, many observers say it will be the last nuclear plant of its kind to be built in the U.S. Santee Cooper (Moncks Corner, South Carlina), a community-owned utility, was developing a two-unit addition using the Westinghouse AP1000 reactor at its Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Power Station. But delays and cost overruns caused the owners to cancel the project in 2017. Those unit additions were co-owned by Santee Cooper and South Carolina Electric & Gas (Cayce, South Carolina), a unit of SCANA Corporation (NYSE: SCG) (Cayce). For more on that project, see August 1, 2017, article - Utilities Abandon Construction of Summer Nuclear Plant in South Carolina. After the cancellation, SCANA was acquired by Dominion Energy Incorporated (NYSE:D) (Richmond, Virginia).

In recent years, the nuclear industry's interests and aspirations have shifted toward small modular reactors (SMRs), but those, too, have experienced significant growing pains.

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