The Plant Vogtle nuclear power station near Augusta was placed under an “alert” level emergency for hours Tuesday afternoon after a transformer caught fire outside the facility, but Georgia Power says the situation never posed a threat to the plant or the public.
The alert involved Units 1 and 2, the two older nuclear units at the site near Augusta, which have been generating electricity since the 1980s.
The “alert” was declared around noon Tuesday, but Georgia Power did not divulge details of what triggered the event until about 3 p.m. The alert was terminated at 2:36 p.m. after the blaze was extinguished, the company said in a news release.
Georgia Power spokesman Jacob Hawkins said Vogtle’s on-site fire personnel responded to put out the fire “quickly” and said the company is looking into a potential cause. He stressed that the incident did not threaten plant safety or that of the general public. Still, the warning stirred some concerns on social media and confusion given the lack of detail.
Hawkins added both units are still operating at full power and that the fire did not cause any disruption to the company’s transmission infrastructure that delivers electricity produced by Vogtle to customers. Vogtle Units 1 and 2 are each capable of producing roughly 1,200 megawatts of electricity.
Georgia Power said it notified the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which regulates the power plant, as well as state and local officials. Amylia Lester, the public information officer for Burke County’s Emergency Management Agency where Plant Vogtle is located, confirmed that their department was also notified about the event.
”Alert” level notifications are the second “least serious” of the four emergency categories outlined by the NRC, Georgia Power said. According to Plant Vogtle’s emergency management plan, “alert” level events should not be a threat to the public.
“You will not need to take any actions unless directed by state and local officials,” the plan reads.
Last month, one of Plant Vogtle’s two new nuclear reactors was knocked offline for more than a week by a valve issue. The unit has since been operating at 100% power.
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