Southern Confirms Vogtle Reactor Delayed to 2019

OREANDA-NEWS. February 02, 2015. Delays in the construction of Southern Co.'s two advanced nuclear reactors in Georgia will push completion of the first unit to 2019 and the second unit to 2020, or three years later than the initial schedule.

Southern's largest utility, Georgia Power, said a revised timetable from a construction consortium of Westinghouse Electric and CB&I/Stone & Webster would delay the estimated in-service date for Vogtle unit 3 to mid-2019 from late 2017 and Vogtle unit 4's completion to mid-2020 from late 2018, according to a regulatory filing.

Georgia Power, which owns a 45.7pc stake in the two new AP1000 reactors, and the construction consortium have been at odds over the project timeline and who will pay costs created by the delay since construction began to slip. Litigation is pending.

When announced, Vogtle unit 3 was scheduled to be completed on 1 April 2016, with Vogtle unit 4 one year later at a cost of \\$6.1bn for the utility.

An independent monitor overseeing construction progress for state regulators predicted the delay in a report last November. The report noted that the consortium was making acceptable progress on the turbine facility, cooling towers and support structures at Vogtle, but had fallen further behind on fabrication, assembly and installation of structural modules and shield building modules.

Georgia Power also cited delays in the receipt of remaining permits needed to operate the new reactors. The utility said it has not agreed to changes in the guaranteed completion dates in its contract with the consortium and "does not believe that the contractor's revised forecast reflects all efforts that may be possible to mitigate" the delay.

The utility said the contractor is responsible for costs related to the construction delay and any costs to accelerate construction to shorten the delay.

Added financing costs are USD30mn per month. Georgia Power will incur property tax, compliance and oversight costs that will increase its capital cost by USD10mn per month until the units enter service.

Georgia Power said it will address cost and schedule issues in its next construction monitoring report to be filed with the Georgia Public Service Commission on 27 February.

Scana, which began building two identical AP 1000 reactors in South Carolina at the same time Georgia Power did, raised its cost estimate last year and said completion of its first reactor would be delayed to late 2018 or early 2019, with the second unit coming on line in 2020.

The more delayed construction becomes, the harder it is for contractors to compress the remaining schedule to catch up, Vogtle's construction monitor said.