The Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week indicated it found no safety concerns that would preclude licensing two new AP1000 reactors at the V.C. Summer nuclear plant in South Carolina.
The agency issued a Final Safety Evaluation Report Thursday. Its findings move the project’s combined license application into the next stage, a mandatory hearing scheduled for later this year. Scana subsidiary South Carolina Electric & Gas submitted the application in 2008 and is shooting for completion of the reactors in 2016 and 2019.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers earlier issued its own determination that the new reactors would not have significant environmental impacts. Final approval for units 2 and 3 still depends on design certification for Westinghouse’s new AP1000 pressurized water reactor design, which received its own FSER earlier this month following a final round of design changes.
SCE&G and Santee Cooper currently operate a single 966 megawatt Westinghouse pressurized water reactor at the site northwest of Columbia, S.C.