The Vogtle nuclear power plant project has been facing major setbacks recently, and the project’s team has announced that the situation is getting worse. This Monday, project team members announced that the previously estimated completion dates of December 2019 and September 2020 are not going to be feasibly met. They announced that the completion dates will probably need to be pushed back and reevaluated in order to account for these delays. This news comes after several other setbacks that have caused the completion dates to be rescheduled again and again. This information came to light in a recent report submitted by Oglethorpe Power Co. to the SEC.
That’s not all. The company Westinghouse, the construction contractor on the project, filed for bankruptcy on Wednesday. Since filing for bankruptcy the company has released statements explaining that their goal is to restructure their approach to meet the financial and construction difficulties that they have been facing over the past few years. Westinghouse says that it will maintain its normal operations during this time of restructuring. To do so, the company has secured $800 million in debtor-in possession financing.
The implication of the Westinghouse bankruptcy is expected to extend beyond this Georgia nuclear power plant project. Westinghouse Electric is majority owned by Toshiba, the Tokyo technology company. Reportedly the goal of this bankruptcy declaration was to mitigate the financial losses being incurred by Westinghouse. In addition to financial losses, Toshiba can expect potential problems if they intend to sell their Westinghouse division. It will be very difficult to find someone to purchase the existing company. Some analysts are saying that the Westinghouse bankruptcy is not only bad news for the Vogtle plant, and Toshiba, but also for the nuclear industry as a whole. Many fear that new nuclear generation developments will not be made as a result of this failure. Additionally, the bankruptcy is going to cause major delays for other construction projects that Westinghouse has on their schedule.
The nuclear power plant project is based near Augusta, Georgia and owned by the Georgia Power company. This company has been under pressure from state officials to meet the deadlines agreed upon last year. The bankruptcy, in addition to other issues, will likely lead to more delays. Georgia Power’s position is going to be worsened by the fact that they own about half of the power plant project, with Oglethorpe coming in second at about 30%. According to Stan Wise, Commission Chairman, the project has fallen within the total authorized capital costs of $3.68 billion. In total, construction on these reactors are about three years behind schedule, which is creating major issues for all of the involved parties.
Regardless of these delays and recent events, all of the involved parties, specifically Westinghouse, Georgia Power, and Oglethorpe will need to return to the drawing board and determine a new plan to attempt to meet their predetermined deadlines. This may mean finding ways to delay the deadlines further, but in either case, a change needs to be made.
