Plant Vogtle expansion cost jumps about $300 million; company says it should meet deadline

The price tag on Plant Vogtle's Unit 3 and 4 expansion took less than a month to jump about $300 million more than the projection given Oct. 21 by staff at Southern Nuclear, the subsidiary in charge of the plant. That increases Georgia Power's projected total cost to $9.5 billion.

Senior leadership from Georgia Power and Southern Nuclear took questions Monday on the Unit 3 and 4 expansion during a hearing in front of the Georgia Public Service commission to approve the 25 Vogtle Construction Monitoring report, which comes out twice a year.

Two Georgia power staffers – David L. McKinney, senior vice president of nuclear development, and Jeremiah C. Haswell, project oversight director – and president and CEO of Southern Nuclear Stephen E. Kuczynski took the stand to elaborate on testimony they filed last month, when they said that Unit 3 would be delayed until the third quarter of 2022.

Many of the questions from staff and intervenors – third parties who have applied to take part in the process – revolved around the amount of work that inspectors found to be below acceptable quality, and the impact of redoing that work on cost overruns and delays.

Read more: https://www.augustachronicle.com/story/news/2021/11/16/plant-vogtle-expansion-cost-jumps-300-million-in-a-month/8627643002/