Southern Co., the biggest U.S. utility owner by market value, can safely expand a Georgia power plant with reactors from Westinghouse Electric Co., according to a panel that advises the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Two Westinghouse AP 1000 reactors can be built at Southern’s Vogtle nuclear plant near Waynesboro, Georgia, “without undue risk to the health and safety of the public,” the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards said in a Jan. 24 letter released today by the NRC.
The NRC’s five commissioners will consider the panel’s advice in deciding whether to approve the AP 1000 reactor design and Southern’s application for a license to build and operate the reactors, Scott Burnell, a spokesman for the nuclear regulatory agency, said in an e-mail.
A consortium led by Atlanta-based Southern has won the only nuclear-loan guarantee awarded by the Energy Department. It will cover about $8.3 billion of the estimated $14 billion needed to build the reactors at the Vogtle site.
The NRC decision on Southern’s license application is due this year, according to a schedule on the agency’s website. A decision on the AP 1000 reactor design is likely “in the near future,” Burnell said.
Members of NuStart Energy consortium are:
DTE Energy, Detroit, MI, Duke Energy, Charlotte, NC, EDF International North America, Washington, D.C., Entergy Nuclear, Jackson, MS, Exelon Generation, Philadelphia, PA, Florida Power & Light Company, Juno Beach, FL, Progress Energy, Raleigh, NC, South Carolina Electric & Gas, Columbia, SC, Southern Company, Atlanta, GA, Tennessee Valley Authority, Knoxville, TN, GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy, Wilmington, NC, Westinghouse Electric Co., Pittsburgh, PA