Southern Co. disclosed Friday that a dispute surrounding licensing delays and design changes to new reactors at Plant Vogtle has moved from mediation to a U.S. District Court.
Westinghouse and a Shaw Group subsidiary claim that the reactors' owners should pay for $600 million in costs associated with design changes to the shield building of the AP1000 reactor, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported, in addition to $244 million associated with project delays and $74 million for design changes to structural modules.
Georgia Power, Oglethorpe Power and the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia own the project. In a conference call Friday, Southern Co. CEO Thomas Fanning said Georgia Power's share of the suit amount would come to $425 million, although he asserted that the reactors' owners were not responsible for those costs. He added that the company does not anticipate that the litigation will have a negative impact on work at the site.
The suit will turn on the court's interpretation of the contract between the project's owners and its biggest vendors, particularly the way that contract deals with costs associated with timelines for acquiring Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval for the project's combined license and for the AP1000 reactor design.
The suit is separate from legal disputes between plant owners and contractors that emerged last summer related to excavation expenses.