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Georgia Power revises Vogtle in-service dates

Friday, 22 October 2021

Georgia Power has shifted back by three months the schedule for the Vogtle 3 and 4 expansion project, citing the need for extra time to address construction challenges and to allow for comprehensive testing. An in-service date in the third quarter of 2022 is now projected for Vogtle 3, with Vogtle 4's in-service date set for the second quarter of 2023.

Georgia Power revises Vogtle in-service dates — Vogtle 4's containment, on the left, and turbine building, on the right, pictured in September (Image: Georgia Power)

Direct construction of unit 3 - where hot functional testing has already been completed - is now 99% complete, and the overall Vogtle 3 and 4 expansion project is about 95% complete. Fuel loading could begin at unit 3 as early as the first quarter of 2022, the company said, but a fuel load date as late as May 2022 "should support" a third-quarter 2022 in-service date.

"As we've said from the beginning of this project, we are going to build these units the right way, without compromising safety and quality to achieve a schedule deadline," Georgia Power President and CEO Chris Womack said yesterday. Progress at the site has been "steady and evident" despite the "extraordinary circumstances" the company has had to endure and overcome in building the first new nuclear units in the USA in more than 30 years, he added.

The latest revision follows one in July, when the company announced projected in-service dates in the second quarter of 2022 for unit 3 and in the first quarter of 2023 for unit 4.

Construction of the two AP1000 units began in 2013: unit 3 in March and unit 4 in November. Southern Nuclear and Georgia Power, both subsidiaries of Southern Company, took over management of the project to build the units in 2017 following Westinghouse's Chapter 11 bankruptcy.