SCE&G seeks reactor project meeting

COLUMBIA, SC SCE&G plans to meet next week with the state Public Service Commission to discuss the company’s beleaguered nuclear expansion project in Fairfield County northwest of Columbia.

The company wants to meet with the PSC next Friday at 10 a.m. to brief the utilities board on the status of the project and a review the company is conducting. The project is $2.5 billion-to $3-billion-overbudget and years behind schedule. SCE&G is building two additional reactors to complement an existing reactor at its V.C. Summer power station.

SCE&G and its junior partner, Santee Cooper, are trying to decide whether to scrap the partially completed project in the wake of the bankruptcy of Westinghouse, its chief contractor. The PSC said earlier this month that a meeting is needed.

“While the evaluation process is still underway, the company is sensitive to the commission's directive of July 12, 2017 that we schedule a follow-up briefing and to the fact that the commission has not been briefed on this matter since April,’’ an attorney for SCE&G, Belton Zeigler, said in a letter to the PSC. “For those reasons, the company is requesting this briefing as an interim update on the status of the evaluation process and to answer questions that the commissioners may have about the project.’’

The nuclear project has been a source of controversy. Customers of SCE&G have been hit with nine rate increases to finance the project. Anti-nuclear groups, some small businesses and environmentalists are urging the project be scrapped before ratepayers are assessed more rate increases.

By some estimates, the project could cost as much as $23 billion, about twice the original amount. Delays have in part been attributed to difficulty getting nuclear reactor parts on time.

This story was originally published July 21, 2017 at 7:46 PM.