The Tennessee Valley Authority’s Inspector General said that French nuclear engineering firm Areva over-billed the TVA by more than $1.2 million for assessment work at the unfinished Bellefonte Nuclear Power Plant in Hollywood, Alabama.
Areva has already returned $607,637 to the TVA for over-billed work at the plant, where construction was suspended in 1988 with Unit 1 about 88 percent complete and Unit 2 about 58 percent complete. Areva was hired for work in 2012 and 2013 to assess how TVA could complete the mothballed reactors that were put on hold due to slack demand for electricity.
Units 1 and 2 are now considered 55 percent and 35 percent completed, respectively, given parts have been taken from the unfinished plants. The completion of the two units is now considered to be contingent on the TVA first completing work at Watts Bar 2, where construction was also nearing completion – about 80 percent done – in 1988, when it, too, was put on hold.
Watts Bar 2, which will produce 1150 megawatts of electricity, is now 95 percent completed and is expected to begin commercial operation sometime before June 2016. Construction on Watts Bar 2 in Spring City, Tennessee, began in 1973.
A year later, construction began at the Bellefonte NPP. About $6 billion has been spent on the first two of four units planned for the site along the Tennessee River, where work is again on hold, although the TVA directors re-approved construction in 2011 after a hiatus of more than 20 years.
Concerning the over-billing, TVA President Bill Johnson said the Inspector General helps “ensure that we only pay for what is appropriate.”