Workers have begun loading radioactive fuel into a new nuclear reactor in Georgia, utilities said Friday, putting the first new American nuclear reactor built in nearly three decades on a path to begin generating electricity in coming months.
Georgia Power says workers will transfer 157 fuel assemblies into the reactor core at Plant Vogtle, southeast of Augusta, in the next few days. There are already two reactors operating at the plant, with fuel being loaded into a third unit and a fourth unit still under construction.
Chris Womack, chairman and CEO of Georgia Power, the largest unit of Atlanta-based Southern Co., said in a statement that fuel loading shows “steady and evident progress” at Vogtle.
“We’re making history here in Georgia and the U.S. as we approach bringing online the first new nuclear unit to be built in the country in over 30 years,” Womack said. “These units are important to building the future of energy and will serve as clean, emission-free sources of energy for Georgians for the next 60 to 80 years.”
After the 90 tons of uranium oxide is loaded by a crane into the reactor, operating company Southern Nuclear will test whether the plant’s cooling and steam supply system work while fuel is inside the reactor at the super-high temperatures and pressures created by splitting atoms. Operators will then start generating electricity and link the plant to the transmission grid, with the reactor planned to reach commercial operation by the end of March.
The Georgia Public Service Commission approved the new reactors in 2012, and the third reactor was supposed to start generating power in 2016. The cost of the third and fourth reactors has climbed from an original estimate of $14 billion to more than $30 billion.
Despite the delays, the head of Dalton Utilities, which owns 1.6% of the new reactors, said the new units at Plant Vogtle “are in investment in Georgia’s future.
“The milestone reached today with the loading of fuel for Unit 3 is a major step in the progressing being made at the site,” Tom Bundros, CEO of Dalton Utilities, said in a statement Friday. “Once complete, the two new Vogtle units in Waynesboro, Georgia will produce enough clean, safe, reliable and affordable energy to power 500,000 Georgia homes and businesses.”
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved plans to load the fuel in August. Approval was delayed because much of the third reactor’s wiring had to be redone after federal regulators found major flaws. Southern Co. also fell behind on inspection documents that had to be completed before the NRC could sign off.
Georgia Power’s 2.7 million customers are already paying part of the financing cost and state regulators have approved a monthly rate increase of at least $3.78 a month as soon as the third unit begins generating power. But the elected five-member Public Service Commission will decide later who pays for the remainder of the costs. The utility has other unrelated rate increases awaiting a decision.
Dalton Utilities ratepayers are also paying for the construction costs of Plant Vogtle as it progresses, according to utility officials.
Vogtle is the only nuclear plant under construction in the United States and will be the first new commercial nuclear plant to go into operation since the Tennessee Valley Authority completed the second unit at its Watts Bar Nuclear Plant near Spring City, Tennessee in 2016 — 43 years after work first began on the facility.
Watts Bar ended up costing TVA nearly twice as much as what was projected when work was restarted on the unit in 1996, although TVA says the power plant is still cost efficient.
But the costs and delays at Watts Bar and Plant Vogtle could deter other utilities from building such plants, even though they generate electricity without releasing climate-changing carbon emissions.
The other owners of Vogtle are trying to shift costs onto Georgia Power. Oglethorpe, MEAG and Dalton all sued Georgia Power earlier this year, claiming the company was trying to bilk them out of nearly $700 million by unilaterally changing a contract.
Under a 2018 deal, Georgia Power agreed to assume all cost overruns above a certain level. In exchange, the co-owners would sell part of their ownership shares to Georgia Power. Oglethorpe and MEAG say projected overruns have reached that level, but Georgia Power said the threshold is $1.3 billion higher than the level claimed by the co-owners.
Georgia Power is settling MEAG’s lawsuit in exchange for making at least $76 million in payments to MEAG.
PLANT VOGTLE AT A GLANCE
– Location: Burke County, Georgia
– Owners: Georgia Power (45.7 percent), Oglethorpe Power Corp., (30 percent), Municipal Electric Association of Georgia or MEAG (22.7 percent) and Dalton Utilities (1.6 percent)
– Operating units: Two reactors competed in 1987 and 1989› New units being built: Westinghouse AP1000 reactors scheduled to be finished next year.
Source: Georgia Power Co.
— Compiled by Dave Flessner