State utility regulators on Tuesday approved Georgia Power’s costs so far to build two nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle in Waynesboro.
But, with the project now several months behind schedule and cost increases looming, the Georgia Public Service Commission has asked the utility to come up with new projections of when the work will be finished.
Georgia Power’s customers have been paying for the reactors through a monthly fee on their utility bills since 2011. In its most recent report to the PSC, the utility said the cost of the project has risen to $6.2 billion from $6.1 billion, but the company has not asked to collect any more money from customers at this time.
Consumer groups are concerned that the more the project lags, the more money customers eventually will have to pay. The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy again asked that the PSC cancel Vogtle’s expansion project because it is too costly for consumers.
The Vogtle project “remains more economically viable than any other (fuel) resource, including a natural gas-fired alternative,” said Dennis Sewell, a PSC staff member, during Tuesday’s meeting.
Ample supplies and low prices have made natural gas a viable alternative to nuclear and other forms of electricity. Georgia Power continues to tout the long-term economic benefits of a nuclear plant, which has more stable fuel costs, even though the project’s costs are starting to creep up.
Vogtle’s costs have risen because the project has slipped behind schedule. How far behind schedule, however, is up for debate. Georgia Power said the reactors will not start producing power any earlier than November 2016 and 2017 — about six months behind the original date. An independent watchdog for Vogtle says the schedule is behind at least a year or more.
Tuesday, the PSC’s advisory staff asked Georgia Power to come up with a new long-term schedule that includes delays for 24, 36 and 48 months.
A Georgia Power spokesman said the company would include those schedules in its next report, which will be filed next week.
The $14 billion Vogtle expansion project is being built with Georgia Power and a group of municipal and cooperative electric companies. The reactors are the first to be approved and built from scratch in 30 years.
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