The South Carolina Public Service Authority took initial steps Oct. 24 to select Brookfield Asset Management Ltd. to purchase and complete the two unfinished reactors at the V.C. Summer nuclear plant. Utility leaders said there will be no additional cost to South Carolina ratepayers.
The board of the state-owned utility, known as Santee Cooper, voted to authorize management to move forward with a letter of intent with Brookfield, which acquired Westinghouse Electric Co. LLC after that company's 2018 bankruptcy.
"You have placed South Carolina at the epicenter of the resurgence of nuclear in the United States," Jimmy Staton, Santee Cooper's president and CEO, said during an Oct. 24 board meeting, appearing overcome with emotion and pausing his speech several times before being met by a standing ovation by the board. "It's been a monumental process. I could not be more proud."
The letter of intent establishes a six-week initial project feasibility period, during which parties will jointly select a project manager and evaluate construction providers who would be used in resuming construction. The six-week period would also allow for advanced discussions with entities interested in buying electricity generated by the units and facilitate additional due diligence, leading to a memorandum of understanding that must also be approved by the board.
Brookfield's proposal, Staton said, "has the greatest financial value and credibility. They've had success in large project developments all around the world and are committed to South Carolina."
Asked by the board about risks to customers, Staton said, "There are no additional financial risks for our customers at all. We are ... expecting a return of some of the value that our customers have already invested in these assets. ... We will not have to contribute any additional dollars during this process."
Santee Cooper and project partner South Carolina Electric & Gas Co., a former subsidiary of SCANA Corp., stopped construction on the V.C. Summer expansion in July 2017. The project was reeling from billions of dollars in cost overruns months after Westinghouse filed for bankruptcy. At the time the project was abandoned, about $9 billion had been spent.
Dominion Energy Inc. acquired SCANA after the project was abandoned, renaming the utility Dominion Energy South Carolina Inc. Dominion and Santee Cooper customers were saddled with the cost of the failed expansion effort. The two additional planned units are expected to generate 1,117 MW each.
Santee Cooper launched a request for proposals process in January to gauge interest from entities in acquiring and completing the two unfinished units. Proposals submitted came from construction, financial, utility and technology companies around the world, the utility said in May. Fourteen entities submitted proposals to determine the future of Summer units 2 and 3, a list later narrowed to five and then three.
Brookfield has a strong balance sheet and capital availability, with more than $1 trillion in assets under management across infrastructure, renewable power, private equity, real estate and credit, Staton told the board. Brookfield's presence in power generation includes 46 GW of operating assets and 227 GW under development.
"We've shifted in the paradigm of how nuclear energy gets built here in the United States. Instead of it being built with the risk being absorbed by the customers ... it will be absorbed by private entities," Staton said. "There's essentially no risk. We think there's high reward for this, and Brookfield brought all of that to the table."
Bidder withdraws
Jonathan Webb, CEO of The Nuclear Company, a self-described "fleet-scale nuclear deployment company" and one of the bidders under consideration for the project, sent a letter to Santee Cooper withdrawing its proposal on Oct. 23, just one day before the utility's announcement.
In the letter, Webb said The Nuclear Company estimated completion of the units could cost about $20 billion to $30 billion.
"We are further concerned that the RFP process itself may have been fundamentally compromised by the evaluation of bids outside the established framework, by parties previously involved in the V.C. Summer project, and with access to information that the other parties did not have," Webb wrote.
"The lessons of this industry's history are clear: When nuclear projects advance outside disciplined and transparent frameworks, the consequences are not hypothetical; they are catastrophic."
The Nuclear Company and Santee Cooper did not immediately respond to requests for comment Oct. 24.
"Brookfield is a majority owner of Westinghouse, which added to their proposal," Staton said.
"Westinghouse looks forward to partnering closely with Santee Cooper and Brookfield to explore the restart of the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station expansion," Westinghouse spokesperson Brian McCrone told Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights.
"The V.C. Summer project will be an economic engine for South Carolina that creates thousands of good-paying engineering, construction and operations jobs, while expanding the state's industrial base. The AP1000 is already setting operational performance and availability records globally and is the right solution to meet the future energy needs of South Carolina."
Unfinished reactors
The two abandoned AP1000 units are identical to those operating at Southern Co.'s Vogtle Nuclear Plant in Georgia, officials have said. V.C. Summer unit 2 is about 48% complete and unit 3 is "significantly less than that," making unit 2 the more attractive and likely candidate for renewed construction, according to Jim Little.
Little is a member of the South Carolina Governor's Nuclear Advisory Council who previously worked at Westinghouse, the primary contractor on the unfinished Summer expansion and the two Vogtle units that entered service in 2023 and 2024.
Santee Cooper leaders said President Donald Trump's executive orders aimed at boosting nuclear generation in the US and congressional preservation of nuclear tax credits in the federal budget law passed earlier this year "encouraged the completion of partially started nuclear resources ... that was directed directly at Santee Cooper."
Santee Cooper had been marketing equipment from units 2 and 3 for several years, through Westinghouse for nuclear-specific equipment and a third party for other components. The utility has sold more than $100 million in equipment, including reactor coolant pumps. Many of those parts have not been delivered yet, however.
About 80% to 90% of the hard parts required to complete both reactors are still in inventory, Santee Cooper's Steve Nance said during a March 31 Nuclear Advisory Council meeting.
Members of the South Carolina Governor's Nuclear Advisory Council in October 2024 first called for a study into restarting construction on the V.C. Summer expansion. Gov. Henry McMaster has also advocated for completion of the project.
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission on June 30 renewed the operating license for unit 1 of the single-unit Summer plant, which began operating in 1984 and produces about 1,000 MW, for the second time, extending it for another 20 years to Aug. 6, 2062.
Joint gas plant
The Santee Cooper board also approved the utility moving forward to jointly build and own a 2,200-MW combined-cycle gas plant with Dominion, a project previously approved by state energy legislation.
"Santee Cooper is answering the call for energy solutions to power continued prosperity in South Carolina," Staton said. "These new projects will go a long way in meeting future energy demands and powering progress across the state."
