Georgia Power announced on Wednesday that operators reached self-sustaining nuclear fission inside the nuclear reactor. This means the heat produced in the reaction can create steam and power turbines which generate electricity
Plant Vogtle’s final reactor Unit 4 is set to begin commercial operation between April and July after a delay earlier this year. It will join the Unit 3, which began commercial operations last summer, and two decades-old existing reactors.
Georgia Power said it is continuing with startup testing on Unit 4, making sure the reactor’s systems can operate at the intense heat and pressure inside a nuclear reactor. Georgia Power says operators will raise power and sync up its generator to the electric grid, beginning to produce electricity. Then operators will seek to gradually raise the reactor’s power to 100%.
Regulators in December approved an additional 6% rate increase on Georgia Power’s 2.7 million customers to pay for $7.56 billion in remaining costs at Vogtle, That’s expected to cost the typical residential customer $8.95 a month, on top of the $5.42 increase that took effect when Unit 3 began operating.
The new Vogtle reactors are currently projected to cost Georgia Power and three other owners $31 billion, according to calculations by The Associated Press. Add in $3.7 billion that original contractor Westinghouse paid Vogtle owners to walk away from construction, and the total nears $35 billion.
The reactors were originally projected to cost $14 billion and be completed by 2017.
Units 3 and 4 are the first new American reactors built from scratch in decades. Each can power 500,000 homes and businesses without releasing any carbon. But even as government officials and some utilities are again looking to nuclear power to alleviate climate change, the cost of Vogtle could discourage utilities from pursuing nuclear power.
