nuclear-news

Another expensive legal fight over Vogtle nuclear power plant

New $900 million Vogtle lawsuit filed, By Kristi Swartz, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 5 Nov 12 The main contractors building two nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle filed a more than $900 million lawsuit against Georgia Power and other utility groups Thursday, escalating a fight over the project’s costs.

The move suggests months of negotiations over who is responsible for cost increases have failed, raising the risk that Georgia Power’s customers, who already are paying for the project in monthly power bills, eventually may be on the hook for more.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, is the third between the parties, but the amount in dispute is significantly higher.

Georgia Power owns 45.7 percent of the Vogtle project, so if it loses
the lawsuit, its share of the payment would be $425 million.

At this point, customers are paying down the financing costs of
Georgia Power’s $6.1 billion share of the $14 billion project through
a monthly fee on their utility bills. The concern is if Georgia Power
loses the lawsuit or settles, the burden on customers will increase.

“We were concerned from the beginning for Georgia Power ratepayers,”
said Sara Barczak, the high risk energy director for the Southern
Alliance for Clean Energy, one of the groups that opposed the
expansion of Vogtle…….
Georgia Power filed its own lawsuit over backfill in August, asking
for a $29.3 million refund from the contractors.

In this week’s lawsuit, Westinghouse Electric Co. and a subsidiary of
the Shaw Group say they should be paid for additional work that needed
to be done to comply with federal regulatory changes in the project’s
design. They also want money to compensate for the utilities’ 10-month
delay in getting the main license to start heavy construction at
Vogtle, in Waynesboro.

Specifically, the contractors want:

* $600 million for design changes in the shield building, a structure
that protects the reactor vessel and radioactive systems.

* $74 million for design changes in structural modules, parts of the
reactor that are built elsewhere and then assembled at Vogtle’s
construction site.

* $244 million from a “delay to the critical path of the project
schedule,” the lawsuit says.

The central issue is interpreting a private contract between the
owners and vendors. According to the lawsuit, “the owners were
required to obtain the (construction license) for the project on or
before July 1, 2011, in order to allow the contractor to achieve its
plan for achieving substantial completion of the project.”…
http://m.ajc.com/news/news/new-900-million-vogtle-lawsuit-filed/nSwWx/

November 6, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Legal, USA