Vogtle Plant Fire Update – And News of an Incident That Occurred a Few Days Earlier

WAYNESBORO, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) – We have new details on the Transformer fire at Vogtle plant back on August 13th.

The fire started outside the nuclear portion of the plant and was quickly extinguished, according to Georgia Power.

A report from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission says the affected equipment was the 480-volt safety regulating transformer.

This feeds the chiller with safety features designed into the 2 B unit.

Units 1, 3 and 4 were not affected.

It came less than a week after another incident at the plant was reported to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

READ THE LETTER REPORTING THE INCIDENT:

The fire put the Vogtle plant on alert for more than two hours, a situation that authorities said never posed a threat to public safety.

An alert “means that an event has occurred that could reduce the safety level of the plant,” the company said in a statement.

Of the four emergency classification levels required by the NRC, an alert is the second level from the lowest.

This happened just days after an inspection at the factory.

READ THE INSPECTION DOCUMENT:

It’s only been a few weeks since the newest unit opened at the factory – seven years late and well over budget.

Units 1 and 2 of the plant have been operating for decades, while units 3 and 4 have been under construction for several years.

The two oldest nuclear reactors were completed in 1987 and 1989. If they lose primary power from the outside grid, as well as backup power from a diesel generator, the reactors can overheat and melt down. A diesel generator was never needed during the incident earlier this month, Georgia Power said.

Vogtle’s two new nuclear reactors are designed to avoid meltdown due to loss of power.

The site’s four nuclear reactors continued to produce electricity at full power, Georgia Power said.

Unit 3 began operating about a year ago, and then Unit 4 came online in April. These are the first new nuclear reactors in the United States in more than 30 years.

The total cost of the expansion project, including financing, was estimated in December at $31 billion for Georgia Power and three other owners. Add in the $3.7 billion that original contractor Westinghouse paid to abandon construction, and the total approaches $35 billion.

Georgia Power owns 45.7 percent of the reactors. Smaller shares are held by Oglethorpe Power Corp., which provides power to member-owned cooperatives, the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia and the city of Dalton. Some utilities in Florida and Alabama have also signed contracts to buy power from Vogtle.