One of the largest cranes in the world went to work at Georgia Power’s Vogtle Unit 4 construction site in Waynesboro, Ga., last week, as more than 120 workers labored to build and place a 64,000-pound modular unit inside the new reactor’s nuclear island.
The CA-04 module, weighing in at 32 tons, was hoisted last Wednesday by a 560-foot tall heavy lift derrick, Georgia Power announced. That’s one of the largest cranes in the world, the company said.
The CA04 module was built onsite in the modular assembly building, then moved and lifted in one piece, despite its weight and bulk. The modular building is 27 feet tall and 21 feet wide.
The modular placement is the latest in a series of recent construction highlights, Georgia Power said. Recent accomplishments include the concrete placement for the Unit 3 Annex Building basemat, the completion of the last of 12 separate water boxes within the Unit 3 Turbine Island and the arrival of multiple pieces of major equipment onsite, such as the pressurizer for Unit 4.
The company is also making progress with local infrastructure, announcing the completion of a variety of transmission upgrades and installations at the site in preparation to connect the new units to Georgia’s power grid.
The ambitions nuclear plant expansion project is expected to result in a facility that can generate more electricity than any other U.S. nuclear facility. The completed facility is expected to provide power to more than one million homes and businesses.
Southern Nuclear, a subsidiary of Southern Company, is overseeing construction and will operate the two new 1,100-megawatt AP1000 units for Georgia Power and co-owners Oglethorpe Power Corporation, the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia and Dalton Utilities. Georgia Power owns 45.7 percent of the new units.
All told, there are currently more than 5,000 workers on site.