The first of the two new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle near Augusta has cleared one of its final testing hurdles, a witness for the Georgia Public Service Commission’s (PSC) staff testified Thursday, another sign that the unit could begin providing electricity to Georgians within days.
But along with the news that the first reactor is nearly complete, other witnesses delivered sharp critiques of the Vogtle project and Georgia Power’s management of it, testifying that the years of setbacks have stripped away any potential financial upside for customers. Instead, the company’s ratepayers will likely be saddled with billions in cost overruns for years, they said.
“The cost increases and schedule delays have completely eliminated any benefit on a life cycle cost basis,” Tom Newsome, the director of utility finance for the PSC and a staff witness, testified Thursday.
John Kraft, a Georgia Power spokesman, said there will be a “thorough review and vetting” by the PSC of Vogtle costs “that will be open and transparent to the public.”
“We have consistently shown these new nuclear units are economical and will serve our customers and the state of Georgia for the next 60 to 80 years with reliable, emissions-free energy,” he said.
The PSC staff witnesses’ comments came during a hearing on progress at Plant Vogtle in Burke County, where Georgia Power and its partners are finishing two new commercial nuclear reactors, the first built from scratch in the U.S. in more than three decades.
But both are way behind schedule. Unit 3 has been delayed by more than seven years and its twin, Unit 4, will be at least six years late when it is completed. Their total cost, meanwhile, has swelled to more than $35 billion, more than double Georgia Power’s initial forecast.
In Thursday’s hearing, Steven Roetger — the lead analyst on Vogtle for the PSC’s public interest staff, who has monitored the project since construction began — said that Unit 3 had passed a “load rejection test” required to ensure the unit can operate safely if offsite power is lost.
After completing the test, Roetger said plant operators are now reducing power to conduct a final check for issues or defects. Once finished, he said the company would gradually raise power again, before placing the reactor into commercial operation.
Once complete, Georgia Power says the units will be in-service for the next 60 to 80 years. At maximum power, each reactor will produce 1,100 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 500,000 homes and businesses. As temperatures rise and the effects of human-caused climate change intensify, the pair of reactors will generate electricity without sending heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Roetger noted that several issues uncovered during Unit 3 start-up testing forced reactor and turbine shutdowns, further delaying the unit’s completion by months. Roetger said many of those snags were avoidable and represented “less-than-expected performance.”
Georgia Power has repeatedly postponed Unit 3′s in-service date this year, first from March to April, then to May or June, and now to July. With only a few days left in the month, Georgia Power said last week that it still expects Unit 3 to officially enter commercial operation by the end of July.
A later panel comprised of Newsome and PSC staff witnesses laid out how those repeated delays have led to steep cost increases, many of which could be foisted onto ratepayers. Meanwhile, Georgia Power has raked in profits, he said.
Newsome and his colleagues recently estimated that by the time Unit 4 enters service, the average customer will have already paid about $926 for Vogtle construction, thanks to a “nuclear cost recovery” fee that’s been included in customers’ monthly bills for years. On Thursday, Newsome said it’s expected that Georgia Power will collect $4.2 billion from that tariff before the units enter commercial operation. That’s more than double what they would have received if the units had been completed on schedule, he testified.
It is not clear how much of Vogtle’s remaining costs will be passed on to ratepayers, but Newsome’s panel projected the potential impact.
If the five regulators at the PSC allow Georgia Power to recover $7.7 billion in construction, capital and financing costs — a figure the company has used it its own modeling — Newsome said it could raise the average residential customer’s monthly bill by $14.10 per month for the first five years after the units are in service. For the next five years, the monthly increase would drop slightly to $13.20.
Exactly how much of the cost overruns will fall to ratepayers will be decided in a set of “prudency hearings” scheduled to begin after fuel is loaded into Unit 4. It’s possible that milestone could be reached in the near future: Last week, Georgia Power announced that it had completed a series of safety tests and inspections on Unit 4.
The company has said it expects to load fuel into the reactor during the third quarter and place the unit into service by the end of the first quarter of 2024.
A note of disclosure
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