Plant Vogtle Unit 4 Begins Commercial Operation, No More New Nuclear Under Construction

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Georgia Energy announced this week that the 1,114-megawatt (MW) Unit 4 nuclear energy reactor at Plant Vogtle close to Waynesboro, Georgia, entered into business operation after connecting to the ability grid in March 2024. The business begin of Unit 4 completes the 11-year growth challenge at Plant Vogtle. No nuclear reactors are below building now in the USA.

Vogtle Unit 3 started business operation in July 2023. The plant’s first two reactors, with a mixed 2,430 MW of nameplate capacitystarted operations in 1987 and 1989. The 2 new reactors convey Plant Vogtle’s complete producing capability to just about 5 gigawatts (GW), surpassing the 4,210-MW Palo Verde plant in Arizona and making Vogtle’s 4 items the biggest nuclear energy plant in the USA.

Building on the two new reactor websites began in 2009. Initially anticipated to value $14 billion and start business operation in 2016 (Vogtle 3) and in 2017 (Vogtle 4), the challenge bumped into important building delays and price overruns. Georgia Energy now estimates the entire value of the challenge to be more than $30 billion.

The business working date is when builders hand over a reactor to the plant proprietor or operator, declaring the reactor to be formally in business operation.

With a complete put in capacity of about 97 GW, the biggest business nuclear producing fleet of any nation is positioned in the USA. The fleet of working nuclear energy reactors accounted for practically 19% of home electrical energy manufacturing in 2023, making nuclear the second-largest supply of U.S. electrical energy technology after pure gasoline, which accounted for 43% of electrical energy technology in the USA final 12 months.

Electrical energy technology from nuclear reactors doesn’t produce CO₂ emissions and might present baseload energy that may in any other case largely come from coal- and pure gas-fired vegetation. Though quite a lot of nuclear reactors have retired in recent times, interest in nuclear energy as an vitality useful resource to assist scale back the carbon footprint of the U.S. electrical energy sector has elevated just lately.

Each Vogtle Items 3 and 4 use a more recent reactor design, the Westinghouse AP1000. This reactor has a smaller footprint and less complicated design than earlier technology reactor applied sciences. It additionally options passive security methods which can be meant to close down the reactor with none operator motion or exterior energy supply.

Vogtle Items 3 and 4 are the primary and solely U.S. deployments of the AP1000 Era III+ reactor. Two different Westinghouse AP1000 reactors have been deliberate for a nuclear energy plant in South Carolina, however utilities there halted building in 2017.

Extra details about U.S. nuclear capability and technology is offered on our U.S. Nuclear Generation and Generating Capacity net web page.

Principal contributor: Slade Johnson. Information merchandise from US HERE.