Plant Vogtle Nuclear Expansion Reaches Milestone
Georgia Power’s Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion project near Augusta has reached a key milestone.
Workers laid down the concrete foundation for the first of the proposed two new reactors.
To get there, it took 41 hours of continuous concrete pouring last week and more than $2 billion of spending since 2009.
Now that the 6-foot thick concrete basemat is complete, Georgia Power spokesman Mark Williams says construction can begin “going vertical.”
“A lot of the foundational work that’s being done is ground level or below but with the placement of this basemat, we’ll start to place the larger structures on top of that that go into building the reactor,” said Williams.
That includes the containment vessel and the reactor’s cradle building.
The unit is currently scheduled to go online in late 2017. The other new reactor is scheduled for the following year.
Last month, Georgia Power officials said they’d be asking ratepayers to cover hundreds of millions in cost overruns for the project. Still, the company says the project is a good deal for customers over the long-term.
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