You can learn more and support our climate reporting by donating at ajc. This coverage is supported by a partnership with 1Earth Fund, the Kendeda Fund and Journalism Funding Partners. Additional hikes could follow, with the exact amount to be determined by the commission in hearings expected to kick off later this year. Georgia Power customers are already paying a fee in their monthly bills to cover the cost.Īccording to recent testimony delivered by witnesses for the Georgia Public Service Commission’s (PSC) public interest staff, the average Georgia Power customer will have paid a total of about $913 in their monthly bills for Vogtle construction by the end of this year.Īs soon as Unit 3 begins generating electricity, another $3.78 rate increase approved by the PSC will begin hitting customers’ monthly bills. The Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia holds 22.7%, while Dalton Utilities has the smallest share at 1.6%. Georgia Power holds the largest stake in the new Vogtle units at 45.7%, followed by Oglethorpe Power - a cooperative serving utilities across the state - which owns 30%. In a progress report filed recently with state regulators, Georgia Power also estimated it will cost $200 million more than previously thought to complete both units, bringing the company’s share of the total project cost to $10.2 billion, up from its earlier $10 billion estimate. After previously projecting an in-service date by the end of 2023, the company said Unit 4 may not begin delivering electricity until the first quarter of 2024.

On its earnings call last month, Georgia Power’s parent, Southern Company, announced new delays in completing Unit 4. Unit 3 and its twin, Unit 4, are more than six years behind schedule and their total price tag has climbed above $35 billion, more than double what was initially forecast. And as the effects of climate change worsen, the plant’s electricity will come without contributing heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions.īut the project has been dogged by costly delays that could send ratepayers’ bills soaring in the years to come.

Southern Company also provides energy-related marketing, trading and technical services in the United States and Europe and offers Southern LINC wireless telecommunications.Once online, Georgia Power says Vogtle’s two new units will generate enough electricity to power 500,000 homes and businesses. Through its Southern Energy subsidiary, Southern Company supplies electricity in 10 countries on four continents and has a growing presence in North America with assets in the Northeast, the Midwest, California and Texas. Based in Atlanta, Southern Company is the parent firm of Alabama Power, Georgia Power, Gulf Power, Mississippi Power, and Savannah Electric. It is the largest producer of electricity in the United States and one of the world's leading independent power producers. Southern Company is an international energy company with more than $35 billion in assets through regional utilities and operations around the world. Georgia Power, the largest subsidiary of Southern Company, is an investor-owned utility, with rates more than 15% below the national average and its 1.8 million customers are in all but six of Georgia's 159 counties. 'Southern Company's experience in power production and demonstrated skills in wholesale marketing offer unique capabilities in pursuing these growth opportunities.' 'The Southeast is continuing to experience strong growth, creating the demand for new electric generation,' said Charles McCrary, president of Southern Company Generation, the business unit responsible for developing and operating all non-nuclear Southern Company generating plants in the Southeast.

The facility, scheduled for commercial operation by early 2002, will sell power directly to the wholesale market and will not affect electric rates paid by Georgia Power customers. The site of the plant will be in northeast Lee County, AL, on the Alabama-Georgia state line, adjacent to Georgia Power's Goat Rock hydro-electric plant on the Chattahoochee River. The combined-cycle power plant will be built near Columbus, GA, and will be owned and operated by Georgia Power, Southern Company's electric utility subsidiary in Georgia. Tom Fanning, chief executive of Southern Company, indicated the new. It is named after a former Alabama Power and Southern Company board chairman, Alvin Vogtle. Southern Company plans to build a 500 MW, natural gas-fired generating facility to help meet growing demand for electricity in the southeast United States. The second reactor, Unit 4, is slated to go in service a year later, in November 2022. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant, also known as Plant Vogtle (/ v o l /), is a four-unit nuclear power plant located in Burke County, near Waynesboro, Georgia, in the southeastern United States.

Southern company new nuclear plant