Following the announcement of schedule delays in August, the companies building two new reactors at V.C. Summer have estimated the project could cost $1.2 billion more than expected.
The delays pushed back completion by a year, with Unit 2 finished in late 2018 or early 2019 and unit 3 coming online 12 months later. In a release Thursday, Scana Corp. said those delays were associated with engineering completion, construction issues and component fabrication. The latter reflects problems at a Louisiana facility formerly owned by the Shaw Group that caused delays earlier in construction at Summer and at the two new AP1000 reactors at Plant Vogtle in Georgia. Scana noted that the new schedule estimate does not consider all efforts possible to save time, nor has the utility accepted the new timeline.
Increased project time translates to higher costs. Scana subsidiary South Carolina Electric & Gas currently owns 55 percent of the project, and its share of the cost increase comes to $660 million in 2007 dollars. Co-owner Santee Cooper could be responsible for $540 million. Although future negotiations will determine how those costs are split among ratepayers, investors and contractors Chicago Bridge & Iron and Westinghouse. The total cost to build the new reactors at the plant in South Carolina was estimated at $9.8 billion in 2008.