First US nuclear power plant built this century goes online
It's more than half a decade late coming online and has cost billions more than estimated, but Georgia Power's Vogtle Unit 3, the first US nuclear reactor built from scratch this century, has finally come online.will supply an estimated 500,000 homes and businesses in the region with power.
"Today's achievement … marks the first day of the next 60 to 80 years that Vogtle Unit 3 will serve our customers with clean, reliable energy." said Georgia Power CEO, chairman and president Kim Greene. Georgia Power said its overall energy mixture is now approximately 25 percent nuclear.in 2009, making it the first nuclear reactor built from the ground up this century, but not the first new reactor in the last 23 years.
That honor belongs to Tennessee-based Watts Bar Nuclear Plant, which brought its second reactor online in 2016. Watts Bar Unit 2 began construction in 1972, but wasWith Vogtle 3 online, Georgia Power is now turning to the completion of Vogtle 4, which will be ready late in the fourth quarter of 2023 or early 2024. Once Unit 4 is online, Vogtle's total output will make it the"largest generator of clean energy" in the US, Georgia Power said.Vogtle Units 3 and 4 are the first pair of Westinghouse AP1000 reactors to come online outside of four units currently being used in China andGiven how poorly early attempts to deploy AP1000s in the US went, it's a small wonder Vogtle 3, and eventually 4, are being completed at all.