PSC staffer: Power plant plan hurts Ga. customers

[kristopher]

Source: AP

ATLANTA -- A staffer with the Georgia Public Service Commission said Wednesday that electric customers - not Georgia Power - could be left paying the bill if the Plant Vogtle expansion blows its budget.

Tom Newsome, an internal consultant with the PSC, testified before the agency as it weighs how Georgia Power and its customers can split the financial risk if costs exceed current estimates. The company and an independent monitor hired by the state have both acknowledged the possibility that the project could top the current $5.8 billion pricetag.

PSC has proposed a plan that would allow Georgia Power, which is a unit of Southern Co., to earn more money from its new reactors if it saves money and keeps its share of construction costs below $5.8 billion. If building costs exceed $6.4 billion, state regulators would lower the company's earnings.

Newsome said the latest version of the PSC plan is a compromise that makes "significant concessions" and was revised to make it more acceptable to Georgia Power and customers.

"We're trying...

Read more: http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/07/06/business-multiutilities-us-nuclear-power-georgia_8552205.html

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The company says that if they had known the company, instead of ratepayers, would be on the hook for cost overruns for their 'oh-so-wonderful-up-until-now nuclear power plant, they never would have started the project in the first place.

But they sure jumped on board when they saw those guaranteed federal loans, didn't they? With that in hand they didn't care less for the CBO projection of a better than 50% probability of bankruptcy for new nuclear plants in the US.

Chalk one up for regulators moving in the right direction.

[Mimosa]

1. Yeah, we could have a mountain Fukushima. n/t