Two new reactors currently under construction at Georgia Power’s Plant Vogtle will be monitored more closely under a new inspection program set up by federal nuclear regulators.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission started the program this year to monitor the building of new reactors, which include Vogtle, in Waynesboro. They are the first reactors to be built under a new construction and licensing process and are the first newly permitted reactors in 30 years.
The NRC has two resident inspectors at the site to review and inspect the construction process of the Vogtle reactors, which are set to start producing electricity in 2016 and 2017.
“It’s fairly extensive because you literally have thousands of different things going on,” NRC spokesman Roger Hannah said.
Inspectors will file reports saying whether the construction process is meeting stringent standards. If it is not, a part of the construction may have to be retested or redone, Hannah said.
“You hope you never reach that point,” he said.
NRC inspectors will review the construction program at a meeting in Augusta Thursday night. The five-member commission is also scheduled to vote on whether to approve two new reactors at SCANA’s V.C. Summer plant in South Carolina Friday.
“Everyone will go through this process,” said Steve Higginbottom, a spokesman for Southern Company, Georgia Power's parent company.
Separately, construction at Plant Vogtle is being reviewed by an independent monitor hired by the Georgia Public Service Commission. That inspector is to review and submit construction and scheduling reports to the PSC, which keeps track of how much the work costs.
Georgia Power is responsible for $6.1 billion of the estimated $14 billion project, which is being built with a consortium of municipal and cooperative utilities.The reactors will join two others, which started producing power in the 1980s. The first two reactors were plagued by massive cost overruns, in part from increased safety requirements, high interest rates and what the PSC deemed as construction mismanagement.
