It’s been a troubling summer for nuclear construction projects in the U.S. and Western Europe, further diminishing the prospects for new projects.
Starting in the U.S., Southern Co.’s two-unit Vogtle plant, long over budget and off schedule, could be unable to make its current commercial operation forecast of May 23, 2021 for the first unit, and May 23, 2022, for the second, POWER magazine reports. The latest doubt on the company’s prediction comes from an analysis by the Georgia Public Service Commission Public Interest Advocacy Staff. The analysis said the current schedule “will be a challenge to achieve.”
The company says it believes it can meet the schedule, but its assertions on schedule and cost in the past have been missed. Construction began on the two Westinghouse AP-1000 reactors in 2009, with a “guaranteed” date for completion in 2016 and 2017, at a $14.3 billion cost estimate. In 2010, Southern subsidiary Georgia Power and partners got a $8 billion federal government loan. The feds increased the loan by $3.7 billion in 2017. The current cost estimate is $27 billion.
In Finland, the Helsinki Times reports that startup of Olkiluoto 3, an advanced pressurized water reactor designed by Areva, which is under construction by a French-German consortium of Areva and Siemens, will face another, six-month delay.The plant has been under construction since 2005. The latest completion data for the long-troubled project is July 2020. The project has been the subject of criticism through most of the construction period. In 2009, University of Greenwich Business School professor wrote, “Olkiluoto has become an example of all that can go wrong in economic terms with new reactors.”
In France, another European Pressurized Reactor project is in a long-running tailspin. Government-owned EDF has announced that its Flamanville 3 project will be delayed another three years, on the order of the nuclear watchdog agency ASN. The regulator ruled that the company must fix a series of bad welds before it can start up the 1,650-MW unit. The plant has been under construction since 2007.
EDF had hoped to persuade the regulators to hold off on fixing the welds until 2024, after it had started up. ASN said, “Delaying repairs until after startup would raise issues about reactor safety during the transition period.” It now looks like the Flamanville 3 unit could not start up before 2023.
— Kennedy Maize