Georgia energy update for July 24

The past two weeks have been eventful for Georgia in energy and it's time for an update. First, Plant Vogtle. Unit 3 was briefly in ascension testing, making it to 32% as of last Friday. Today it is back to zero. Here's why:

Click any image to see the source.

To see many of the recent issues for Unit 3 here is a screen grab of a PSC filing. Though it's over a month old, and redacted, you can still glean a lot. Note that according to Ga Power, Unit 3 was supposed be completed in November 2021, March 2022, June 2022, September 2022, February 2023, April 2023, June 2023 and now July 2023.

Before I get too far I want to notify you that the Ga PSC is having a hearing this Thursday July 27 at 9:30 AM to hear from Intervenors and Staff on the status of Plant Vogtle. You can attend in person at the commission or watch live via You Tube at https://psc.ga.gov/ and click on the You Tube icon. The recording will be found there after the fact if you can't make that time.

Moving on to Unit 4, on May 1st "Hot functional testing" (HFT) was completed, a major milestone.

Last week the major milestone after HFT was completed: all the ITAACs were completed. What's that? It's paperwork required by the NRC to document required testing steps and documentation were completed. Completion of this step means the NRC can authorize Ga Power to load fuel into Unit 4's reactor.

Now let's talk money. When Unit 3 reaches 100% generation capacity again (again? It was at 100% briefly on May 31st.)

30 days after Unit 3 is in commercial operation, whenever that is, Ga Power will add $2.1 billion to its $23 billion rate base and will add $350 million annually into its revenue requirements for 60 years.

Yep. You read that right. That's just for 1,100 MW of energy for Unit 3. Is that a crazy amount of money for a relatively small amount of clean energy? Yes. I crossed out the $150 MWh number in the figure below because PSC staff filings now calculate it at $170 MWh but IEEFA hasn't updated this graphic.

You don't have any doubts about why So Co stock is doing so well or why So Co CEO is making double digit compensation do you? Their board is thrilled.

Good times if you are a stockholder. Painful times if you are a ratepayer.

This was just for $12/month for 3 years. Ga Power customers have no idea what's coming for them with Plant Vogtle. NONE.

Unit 3 is small potatoes compared to Unit 4. Once fuel is loaded into Unit 4 that allows Ga Power to file a request for the Ga PSC to schedule Prudency hearings where Ga Power will ask commissioners to deem billions in Plant Vogtle cost overruns as prudent and reasonable.

This will be the trial of the century - the biggest financial decision any state agency has ever made in Georgia. How many billions? No one knows but it could be $10.9 billion because that's how much the cost overruns are.

Energy colleagues: has any state commission ever had a proceeding this large? How about $8 billion? Or $6 billion? I think that no commission has even seen $2 billion in proceedings except for Georgia (we've had 3 in the past four years) but please let me know if that's wrong.

Note that $10.9 billion isn't the full cost of Vogtle - far from it. Many billions have already been approved for recovery from the 2017 decision to continue with Vogtle after the bankruptcy of Westinghouse. $7 billion was approved in 2017 to complete the project in addition to the billions already spent. It gets complicated in a hurry.

Also note those billions are only for Ga Power's .457% share. Ga Power does not report the full costs to the Ga PSC or in their reports - you've got to calculate that yourself. To do that, all numbers must be divided by .457 to find the full cost. Georgia's municipal utilities are on the hook for 22.7% of costs and Georgia's EMC are on the hook for 30%. There've been lawsuits from partners on cost overruns which may have resulted in some slight reduction in these numbers. The Associated Press has done the work of these calculations, and one intervenor asked the commission to do that and you can find that here. This is from an intervenor's question and can be found on the Ga PSC website. Click image to see the source.

And here's the AP story on costs.

Because prudency hearings have not been scheduled and because costs continue to accrue at $5.6 million per day, I don't have exact revenue requirements or rate base impacts from Unit 4 and the entire projects. Here's what we know: estimates from intervenors are that approximately $800 million in revenue requirements if $10 billion in cost overruns is approved. I don't know how many billions added to the rate base - at least $4 billion but could be as high as $8 billion. Note that's in addition to the $2.1 billion for Unit 3 above.

The costs for Plant Vogtle are incomprehensible. The people of Georgia have been royally hosed by the Ga Public Service Commission. Here's the receipt for the $5.6 million per day:

This is from Ga Power's VCM 28 filing (Vogtle Construction Monitoring report, 28th one; note they are filed semi-annually.) $461,000,000 divided by .456 = $1,008,752,000 or a little over $1 billion for the six-month reporting period. There are 180 days in 6 months so $1 billion divided by 180 is $5.6 million/day.

Who are the state commissioners that allowed this happen to Georgia? They are dudes and dudettes who donate to the Governor and receive their seat as a thank you by appointment after someone resigns to make room, and then they run for election with the power of incumbency at their back.

Note they have zero energy experience at the time they are appointed or elected: zero. Every single one of them. And they are not Ga Power customers. They pay their home electric bills to EMCs - all except for one who rents an apartment in the Atlanta district to qualify for his appointment so he pays a small bill for that rental and pays his actual home electric bill to his EMC.

Here they are from left to right and their professional expertise: Commission Johnson, real estate; Commissioner Echols, Christian ministry; Commissioner Pridemore, computers; Commissioner McDonald, McDonald funeral homes; Commissioner Shaw, olive farmer. They learn on the job at tax-payer expense and do whatever Ga Power wants them to do.

They bring conservative values to the commission, also known as business values. Republicans aren't known for their consumer protection interests, for any social safety net ethic, or for their interest in good governance. These commissioners in particular routinely violate state law and policy outlining how the PSC should operate and the public interest role they should serve. I wrote about that in my last newsletter, "Georgia PSC: The Wild West".

To read more about why Georgia chose Plant Vogtle over other more affordable types of energy, see Ga Conservation Voter's excellent report "Ratepayer Robbery: the true cost of Plant Vogtle." Why did Georgia approve this project? Why did it continue in 2017 when SC canceled their twin to ours? What role did Commissioner Echols specifically play and what will the impact be on Georgia? It's all here.

I have written a good bit about ratepayers in this post, something you almost never see when it comes to posts about "how important nuclear is to solving climate change", and "if you don't support nuclear you aren't serious about climate change" and so on so let me take my own advice to make sure that ratepayers are part of the discussion. They are the ones paying for Plant Vogtle, after all. Let's hear from them directly. It's less than 3 minutes. If your heart doesn't crack a little bit after watching this, you are harder than me.

I was going to write about Southern, Duke and other SE utilities losing in court on the spurious energy trading market known as SEEM, and about Commissioner Pridemore stepping down as chair and why, but I'm out of time. More to come later.