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Georgia Power will pay $413 million to settle lawsuit over nuclear reactor cost overruns

GPB, October 6, 2023 Associated Press #nuclear #antinuclear #nuclear-free #NoNukes

Georgia Power Co. will pay $413 million to settle a lawsuit accusing the utility of reneging on financial promises to one of its nuclear reactor partners.

The payments to Oglethorpe Power Corp., announced Friday, could hold down future bills for millions of electric cooperative customers in Georgia.

Oglethorpe sued Georgia Power in June 2022 in a contract dispute over who should pay for cost overruns for a third and fourth reactor at Plant Vogtle, southeast of Augusta.

Atlanta-based Southern Co., which owns Georgia Power, said it would write off a $152 million loss on the settlement.

Georgia Power also announced Friday that it must replace one of the four massive pumps that cools the Unit 4 reactor after operators found a problem with the pump’s motor during testing. Georgia Power said it believes the problem is an “isolated event” and has a spare pump on site, but said the replacement ends the company’s hope of placing Unit 4 in commercial operation this year. The utility said the reactor is still on schedule to begin operating by March.

That was already the company’s fallback date……………………………………………………………………………………………..

Currently, all the owners are projected to pay more than $31 billion in capital and financing costs, Associated Press calculations show. Add in $3.7 billion that original contractor Westinghouse paid to the Vogtle owners to quit building the reactors, and the total nears $35 billion.

Besides Oglethorpe and Georgia Power, Vogtle’s owners include the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia and the city of Dalton. MEAG and Dalton also sued. Georgia Power agreed last year to pay up to $76 million to settle the lawsuit by MEAG, which provides power to 49 municipal utilities. The Dalton lawsuit is still pending, and Georgia Power said Friday that it could owe the city up to $17 million…………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://www.gpb.org/news/2023/10/06/georgia-power-will-pay-413-million-settle-lawsuit-over-nuclear-reactor-cost

October 7, 2023 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Legal, USA