pwr_july-2024 - 14

PLANT OF THE YEAR
Plant Vogtle Units 3 and 4 Win
POWER's Plant of the Year Award
Courtesy: Georgia Power Company
Adding new reactors to the U.S.'s fleet of nuclear power plants doesn't happen
every day. In fact, prior to the addition of Plant Vogtle Units 3 and 4, it hadn't been
done from scratch in decades. Success was not easy, but perseverance paid off
as Georgia Power now operates the largest thermal power plant in the country at
Plant Vogtle.
Aaron Larson
uclear energy plays a very important
role in Georgia's energy portfolio.
Georgia Power began operating
a reactor in the state in 1975 when
the first unit at Plant Hatch entered commercial
operation near Baxley, Georgia. A
second unit was added at Hatch in 1979,
two units entered service at the Vogtle
Electric Generating Plant near Waynesboro,
Georgia, in 1987 and 1989, and today
about 25% of the state's electricity is
supplied by nuclear power.
Plant Vogtle is named for Alvin W.
N
Vogtle Jr., past Chairman of the Board
of Southern Company and an executive
leader with the company from the
1960s to the 1980s. Prior to his career
with Southern Company, Vogtle was a
storied World War II veteran. He was
captured by the Germans and made a
prisoner of war. During 26 months of
confinement, he tried to escape on six
separate occasions, scaling a 15-foothigh
barbed-wire fence, and crossing
the Rhine River to Switzerland and freedom
on the final attempt.
The Need for More Reactors
Georgia Power said the journey of Vogtle
Units 3 and 4 really started with the
completion of Vogtle Units 1 and 2, and
the safe and highly reliable operation
of those units from commissioning to
today. " The clean, safe, reliable, and af14
fordable
energy those units provide to
Georgia were foundational elements
for building Vogtle 3 and 4, the first new
nuclear reactors to come online in more
than 30 years, " Aaron Abramovitz, executive
vice president and Chief Financial
Officer for Georgia Power, told POWER.
Yet, while the addition of the units
may have been in the cards for decades,
the real work commenced in 2004. That's
when Southern Company, the parent of
Georgia Power, began considering the
feasibility of new nuclear units. Southern
Company was one of the charter
members of NuStart LLC, formed that
year to combine industry resources and
pursue federal cost sharing for the advancement
of Westinghouse's AP1000,
a pressurized-water reactor (PWR, Figure
1), and GE Hitachi's Economic Simplified
Boiling-Water Reactor (ESBWR)
designs. NuStart was also instrumental
in the preparation of a reference combined
construction and operating license
application for the AP1000.
Meanwhile, Southern Company also
began to evaluate various sites for a
dual-unit addition. The Vogtle site was
selected with Georgia Power as the lead
sponsor of the project within Southern
1. This image shows fuel loading activities in progress on the Vogtle Unit 4 AP1000 pressurized
water reactor. Courtesy: Georgia Power Company
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POWER | July 2024

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