South Carolina’s largest energy supplier Santee Cooper has issued a request for proposals (RFP) geared toward discovering a purchaser—or visionary—to tackle what stays of the Virgil .C. Summer season Nuclear Station growth. The 2 partially constructed AP1000 tasks, deserted in 2017 after a cascade of delays and value overruns, might now provide a second likelihood to ship much-needed carbon-free energy at a pivotal time for the vitality business, the utility stated.
Santee Cooper on Jan. 22 stated it engaged funding financial institution Centerview Companions to conduct the RFP. The trouble will search “events concerned about buying the challenge and associated property, and doubtlessly finishing one or each items or pursuing different makes use of of the property,” it stated. Responses are attributable to Centerview on Might 5, 2025.
The transfer marks a realistic shift for Santee Cooper, South Carolina’s state-owned electrical and water utility, which owns the deserted reactors. Whereas Santee Cooper has not indicated plans to personal or function the items if accomplished, the utility acknowledges the location’s strategic worth. “We’re seeing renewed curiosity in nuclear vitality, fueled by superior manufacturing investments, [artificial intelligence (AI)]-driven information middle demand, and the tech business’s zero-carbon targets,” stated Jimmy Staton, Santee Cooper’s president and CEO.
“Contemplating the lengthy timelines required to deliver new nuclear items on-line, Santee Cooper has a singular alternative to discover choices for Summer season Models 2 and three and their associated property that would enable somebody to generate dependable, carbon emissions-free electrical energy on a meaningfully shortened timeline,” he stated.
Reviving an Deserted Undertaking
The 973-MW V.C. Summer season, positioned in Jenkinsville, South Carolina, is a single-unit Westinghouse three-loop pressurized water reactor energy plant accomplished in 1984. In 2008, SCANA Corp. and Santee Cooper launched a partnership to construct two 1.1-GW AP1000 nuclear items as a part of a $9 billion growth challenge. The challenge garnered mixed development and working (COLs) from the Nuclear Regulatory Fee (NRC) in 2012.
From its inception, the V.C. Summer season growth, together with an identical growth spearheaded by Southern Nuclear for 2 AP1000 items at Plant Vogtle close to Augusta, Georgia, have been championed because the centerpiece of the U.S. nuclear renaissance. Nonetheless, each tasks suffered escalating prices and crippling delays, compounded by regulatory design adjustments, provide chain inefficiencies, and mismanagement. In March 2017, Westinghouse, overwhelmed by monetary losses from its fixed-price EPC contracts for the AP1000 reactors at V.C. Summer season and Plant Vogtle—and additional exacerbated by its ill-fated acquisition of CB&I Stone & Webster and companion Toshiba’s lack of ability to maintain the burden—filed for Chapter 11 chapter.
SCANA and its utility companion Santee Cooper introduced their determination to abandon the two-unit V.C. Summer season nuclear growth on July 31, 2017. The challenge was about 64% full. When it deserted the challenge, SCANA cited price issues, noting that its share of prices to complete the challenge as 55% proprietor would have soared to $9.9 billion, whereas Santee Cooper, which owned the remaining 45%, stated it might have wanted to spend about $8 billion to full development, plus about $3.4 billion for curiosity. The companions stated the choice would save clients almost $7 billion.
The controversial halt to the V.C. Summer season challenge marked the start of SCANA’s fast decline, pushed by backlash from ratepayers, lawsuits, and federal investigations over its dealing with of the failed growth severely broken the corporate’s fame and funds. The turmoil finally led to SCANA’s acquisition by Dominion Vitality in 2018 for $14.6 billion in a deal that included important concessions to ratepayers and shareholders geared toward stabilizing the ability firm’s future. Dominion continues to get well capital prices and a return on capital price fee base associated to the challenge, that are scheduled over a 20-year interval by means of a capital price rider.
In January 2019, Dominion Vitality accomplished its acquisition of SCANA and transferred SCANA’s 55% possession stake within the partially accomplished AP1000 items, together with related challenge property, to Santee Cooper. The transaction made Santee Cooper, which beforehand held a forty five% possession stake, the only proprietor of the V.C. Summer season Nuclear Undertaking. Later, in August 2020, Santee Cooper finalized a settlement settlement with Westinghouse that granted the utility full management and possession of the challenge website, together with all non-nuclear and nuclear-related gear, supplies, and mental property related to the AP1000 reactors.
Individually, the growth at Plant Vogtle—together with completion of Vogtle 3 and 4—in Georgia was finally achieved final 12 months. Initially projected to price $14 billion, the entire price has surged to over $30 billion, with the co-owners—Georgia Energy, Oglethorpe Energy Corp., Municipal Electrical Authority of Georgia, and the town of Dalton—incurring roughly $21 billion in capital development prices after factoring in almost $4 billion recovered from Toshiba’s mum or dad assure following Westinghouse’s chapter. Regardless of important price overruns and criticism, the Vogtle growth has been hailed as a cornerstone for the way forward for nuclear vitality within the U.S., and it stays symbolic of a essential starter challenge that broke a three-decade-long business stalemate for nuclear energy.
A Troubling Historical past of Deserted Nuclear TasksOver the many years, greater than 100 nuclear tasks have been deserted, lots of them properly into development. To be taught extra, see POWER’s complete infographic, The Massive Image: Deserted Nuclear Energy Tasks, printed in February 2018. |
Driving on New Optimism for Nuclear
Immediately, curiosity in repowering nuclear tasks, lengthy dismissed as impractical, is gaining traction because the U.S. grapples with rising electrical energy demand and decarbonization targets. In September 2024, Microsoft and Constellation Vitality dedicated $1.6 billion to restart the Unit 1 reactor of the shuttered Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania by 2028, now generally known as the Crane Clear Vitality Heart. Final 12 months additionally cemented efforts to restart the 800-MW Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan. New prospects are rising fluidly, pushed largely by optimism to assist the burgeoning superior nuclear sector, which might usher in a brand new era of smaller, safer, and extra versatile reactors.
Final 12 months, the Division of Vitality steered nuclear capability might doubtlessly triple from 100 GW in 2024 to 300 GW by 2050 if key obstacles are overcome. The company cited a convergence of things which have reshaped nuclear’s worth proposition. After many years of relative stasis, electrical energy demand is surging as a result of fast progress of synthetic intelligence functions and information facilities, which require carbon-free, 24/7 era inside a compact footprint. The shift, in flip, has created a brand new class of consumers prepared to put money into nuclear energy as a dependable, emissions-free answer. Incentives beneath the Inflation Discount Act (IRA), together with bipartisan assist for nuclear, have additional enhanced nuclear’s financial attractiveness, it stated.
On Tuesday, Santee Cooper emphasised comparable components that make the V.C. Summer season growth’s completion significantly compelling, together with the pressing want for “new producing capability, pushed by fast progress in information facilities, the continued onshoring of superior manufacturing and the retirement of fossil items.” The utility additionally pointed to a rising nationwide curiosity in repowering beforehand deserted or delayed nuclear tasks as a strategy to shorten development timelines for superior vitality infrastructure. “Unit 2 was considerably progressed when the challenge was canceled,” it famous.
The utility additionally stated that V.C. Summer season is uniquely positioned “as the one website within the U.S. that would ship 2,200 MWs of nuclear capability on an accelerated timeline.” Its location “inside the nuclear safety ‘envelope’ of the bigger V.C. Summer season station website” was “all the time supposed to carry a number of items,” it added. The positioning additionally has entry to “ample land, water, and transmission infrastructure upgrades constructed to accommodate output from the items.”
The challenge’s revival, pivotally, additionally has assist from key factions inside the state of South Carolina. In December 2024, the state’s Governors Nuclear Advisory Council printed a “decision of assist” for the challenge’s completion. A September 2024 inspection of the deserted items “discovered them in good situation, with important quantities of well-preserved components, absolutely operational warehouses, and main infrastructure parts already in place,” the decision states. As well as, the challenge stays roughly 45% full [Unit 2 is at about 48% and Unit 3, significantly less], and the Westinghouse engineering drawings for the AP1000 items are actually full, which can velocity development and scale back prices,” it notes.
The decision additionally underscores a rising urgency to finish the challenge, noting that “coal-fired energy vegetation representing 14% of South Carolina’s electrical era are scheduled to close down inside the subsequent few years,” whereas emphasizing that nuclear supplies “a dependable baseload vitality supply that doesn’t produce carbon dioxide.” It requires a “thorough inspection and evaluation of the associated fee and development schedule to finish the challenge.” If the findings are “optimistic,” it urges the challenge house owners and South Carolina legislature to collaborate on attaining the purpose of plant completion.
—Sonal Patel is a POWER senior editor (@sonalcpatel, @POWERmagazine).
