The nation’s only nuclear power construction site will represent less than a tenth of total new generation capacity this year, the federal government’s independent energy auditor reported Monday.
Although two new reactors with a combined capacity of 2.2 gigawatts (GW) are slated to come online in 2023 at Georgia’s Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant, that added generation should only come out to about 4% of the year’s total capacity increase, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in a report released Monday.
Solar power sources will make up the lion’s share of new capacity in 2023, at roughly 29 GW, the EIA report said.
Plant Vogtle’s two new reactors, Units 3 and 4, are scheduled to come online this year after several delays. Most recently, operator Georgia Power in January pushed the Unit 3 reactor’s startup date back to April after testing revealed a vibrating pipe in the facility’s coolant system. Vogtle Unit 3 was initially scheduled to come online in March.
If they start up as planned, the Waynesboro, Ga., Vogtle reactors will be the first new grid-scale nuclear generation capacity in years — since Tennessee’s Watts Bar Unit 2 reactor came online in 2016.
Meanwhile, nuclear power plants have been shutting down at a much faster rate. Michigan’s Palisades Nuclear Generating Station was the most recent facility to go offline in May 2022, although current operator Holtec International is seeking federal funds to restart it. The Covert, Mich., plant’s 789 megawatts of power accounted for almost 10% of total U.S. capacity loss in the first half of last year, EIA reported at the time.
2021 saw the shutdown of New York’s Indian Point Energy Center, and Illinois had a near-miss with two of its own plants — the Byron and Dresden facilities.
