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With Vogtle Completion in Sight, Southern Company Targets Net-Zero Carbon Emissions

May 31, 2020

The post With Vogtle Completion in Sight, Southern Company Targets Net-Zero Carbon Emissions appeared first on POWER Magazine.

Fresh off the announcement that the final module for Vogtle Unit 3 was placed at the nuclear expansion project in Georgia, Southern Company said on May 27 that it was setting “a long-term greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.”

The announcement was made during Southern Company’s annual stockholders meeting, which was held as an online event this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The company also reaffirmed its intermediate goal of a 50% reduction of GHG emissions from 2007 levels by 2030.

“I continue to be confident that we are prepared and well-positioned to meet the needs of our customers, employees, communities and investors well into the future and will succeed in the transition to a net-zero carbon future,” Tom Fanning, chairman, president and CEO of Southern Company, said in a statement. “As always, we are committed to providing clean, safe, reliable and affordable energy to the customers we are privileged to serve.”…

Southern Nuclear Adds New Power Plant Simulators

August 19, 2019

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GSE Systems said it has delivered and commissioned three additional full-scope simulators for Southern Nuclear’s new Operations Training Centers. The simulators are for the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant, Edwin I. Hatch Nuclear Plant, and the Joseph M. Farley Nuclear Plant.

Simulators provide efficient hands-on learning for power plant operators. While power plants of any type can benefit from simulators, nuclear plants perhaps gain the most value, as missteps on a live reactor plant can result in grave consequences. Simulators generally operate on personal computers and are provided for a broad audience of technical and non-technical professionals, students, and instructors.

GSE said Southern Nuclear’s additional simulators will add flexible scheduling and increased capacity that can drive operator performance. The simulators will also offer more availability to each plant’s engineering and maintenance staff, who find the simulators useful for virtually commissioning plant changes, validating plant procedures, management certification, and a variety of other training activities. Furthermore, the simulators are said to have been upgraded with some of the latest technology, including GSE’s new OpenSim 7.0 simulator operating system and enhanced containment modeling program and its PSA-HD program to train operators on beyond-design-basis events.…

Southern Co. to File Rate Case for Kemper IGCC, Already Economically Unviable in Face of Cheap Gas

June 3, 2017

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Announcing yet another lag beyond a new in-service date for its Kemper County integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) project, Southern Co. may raise discussions with regulators about the possibility of scrapping the project’s gasification component.

The company’s subsidiary Mississippi Power last said the first-of-its-kind project should begin operations by May 31. On May 31, however, the utility announced that the facility “is not currently fully operational.” It also said it would delay a monthly project status report that was due on June 1 to the Mississippi Public Service Commission (MPSC). It plans to submit the report on June 5 instead, because “the company continues to assess the project’s schedule and cost.”

On June 5, the company is also likely to make a rate filing for the project. It is expected to request an accounting order to defer all costs incurred after the project is operational, that are not subject to a cost cap, and are not already included in rates.

Mississippi law allows Mississippi Power to file both a traditional rate case and an alternative multi-year rate mitigation plan.…

Southern Company Could Delay Plant Vogtle Decision Until Late Summer

May 30, 2017

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CEO Tom Fanning told Southern Co.’s shareholders attending the company’s annual meeting on May 24 that a decision on how to proceed with the Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion could take several more months.

The Vogtle expansion—one of two new nuclear construction projects underway in the U.S. utilizing Westinghouse’s AP1000 technology—has been in limbo, albeit still in progress, since Westinghouse filed for bankruptcy in late March. Yesterday, Reuters reported that Westinghouse had “reached a deal to borrow $ 800 million after allaying creditors’ concerns that the money would be flowing to non-bankrupt affiliates overseas.”

But that news doesn’t seem to have made Southern Co.’s decision to proceed with Plant Vogtle Units 3 and 4 any easier. Following the annual meeting, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that despite company officials previously stating that they had hoped to have a decision by today, or at least in June, Fanning is now aiming for August or “late summer.”

Less than two weeks ago, Southern Co. subsidiary Georgia Power announced that it had reached a new service agreement, which would allow for the transition of project management from Westinghouse to Southern Nuclear and Georgia Power “once the current engineering, procurement and construction contract is rejected in Westinghouse’s bankruptcy proceedings.”…

GE-Hitachi and Southern Nuclear to Pair on Fast Reactor Design Advancement

November 6, 2016

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GE-HItachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) and Southern Nuclear Energy will collaborate to study the development and licensing of GEH’s PRISM sodium-cooled fast reactor design.

Southern Nuclear Development, a subsidiary of Southern Co. company Southern Nuclear Operating Co. signed a memorandum of understanding to study the high-energy neutron reactor design, as well as to work together toward participating in future U.S. Department of Energy advanced reactor licensing projects.

The companies said in a joint press release on October 31 that the PRISM design has benefited from the operating experience of EBR-II. Developed under the U.S. Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) program, the EBR-II was a 62-MWe prototype that began operations in 1961 at a Argonne National Laboratory site in Idaho Falls, Idaho, and operated for more than 30 years. The prototype was used for testing materials and design concepts and later used to generate power for other site facilities.

The reactor was shut down in 1994. In mid-2015, crews completed work to entomb the reactor, removing and treating the last of the sodium coolant from the reactor’s nine heat exchangers.…