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Work on the two-unit Vogtle nuclear station construction project in the US state of Georgia is on schedule to meet revised targets of commercial operation in November 2021 and November 2022, Stephen Kuczynski, president of Southern Nuclear, said.

Mr Kuczynski told a Public Service Commission hearing on Tuesday that he is optimistic the project will be completed on time.

“We continue to work to our aggressive schedule. We feel that is still achievable,” Mr Kuczynski said. “It is a challenge, but achievable.”

Both units were supposed to be up and running by now, but Georgia Power and state regulators agreed to a new deadline, to have Unit 3 in operation in November 2021, and Unit 4 in November 2022.

That “aggressive” timeline has slipped by about two months for Unit 3, officials told the commission.

In August 2019 Georgia Power said significant progress had been made at the construction site, with the project about 79% complete.

The project met all major milestones in 2018 and met all first and second quarter major milestones for 2019.

Vogtle-3 and -4, both Westinghouse AP1000 units, are the first commercial nuclear plants to be built in the US in a generation and the only new units currently under construction in the country.

Southern Company owns 45.7% of the Vogtle project via its subsidiary Georgia Power. The other co-owners are Oglethorpe Power with 30%, MEAG Power with 22.7% and Dalton Utilities with the remaining 1.6%.

Another company, Southern Nuclear, which operates nuclear plants for Georgia Power, took over project management from Westinghouse following its bankruptcy in 2017.

Date: Thursday, 14 November 2019
Original article: nucnet.org/news/work-on-schedule-to-meet-revised-targets-says-southern-nuclear-11-3-2019