Regulators approve deal to pay for Georgia Power's new nuclear reactors

Regulators have unanimously approved an additional 6% rate increase to pay for remaining costs at Georgia Power Co.’s Plant Vogtle

ATLANTA -- Almost 15 years of wrangling over who should pay for two new nuclear reactors in Georgia and who should be accountable for cost overruns came down to one vote Tuesday, with the Georgia Public Service Commission unanimously approving an additional 6% rate increase to pay for $7.56 billion in remaining costs at Georgia Power Co.'s Plant Vogtle.

The rate increase is projected to add $8.95 a month to a typical residential customer’s current monthly bill of $157. It would take effect in the first month after Vogtle’s Unit 4 begins commercial operation, projected to be sometime in March. A $5.42 rate increase already took effect when Unit 3 began operating over the summer.

Tuesday's vote was the final accounting for Georgia Power's portion of the project to build a third and fourth reactor at the site southeast of Augusta. They're currently projected to cost Georgia Power and three other owners $31 billion, according to Associated Press calculations. Add in $3.7 billion that original contractor Westinghouse paid the Vogtle owners to walk away from construction, and the total nears $35 billion.

The reactors were originally projected to cost $14 billion and be complete by 2017.

Vogtle’s Unit 3 and Unit 4 are the first new American reactors built from scratch in decades. Each can power 500,000 homes and businesses without releasing any carbon. But even as government officials and some utilities are again looking to nuclear power to alleviate climate change, the cost of Vogtle could discourage utilities from pursuing nuclear power.