In February, Georgia Power reported that workers at the Vogtle 3 and 4 project completed the final concrete placement inside the Unit 3 containment vessel, which houses the unit’s reactor.
Georgia Power’s Sept. 26 gamble to accept demands from Oglethorpe Power Corp. to assume more contractual risk and continue the Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion—now estimated at $27 billion—matches the utility’s earlier assessment that contractors can deliver the long-delayed project on the current schedule.
State construction monitors are skeptical that builders of the Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion can overcome a daunting labor shortage and meet Georgia Power’s accelerated project schedule.
Plant Vogtle’s new nuclear units may become operational considerably ahead of the schedule that Georgia Power announced last fall when Bechtel officially took over the beleaguered project.