Cranberry Township, PA, October 14, 2022 – Westinghouse Electric Company congratulates Georgia Power, Southern Nuclear, and other Vogtle expansion project partners on fuel load for the new Plant Vogtle Unit 3 AP1000® reactor near Waynesboro, GA. The advanced nuclear fuel was manufactured at Westinghouse’s Columbia Fuel Fabrication Facility in South Carolina.
“This is an exciting and important milestone to bring our proven AP1000 reactor to the very last stage before starting to generate clean, affordable and reliable power in America,” said Patrick Fragman, Westinghouse President and Chief Executive Officer. “The AP1000, the most advanced, next-generation nuclear reactor available in the world, will help advance the nation’s climate change and energy security goals.”
Following completion of the fuel load, Southern Nuclear, which will operate the new unit on behalf of Georgia Power and the other co-owners, will begin the startup sequence to ready the reactor for commercial operation in the first quarter of 2023. Once online, Vogtle Unit 3 will power hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses around the clock for the next 60 to 80 years and avoid about 10 million tons of CO2 being released in the atmosphere.
The AP1000 unit is the only operating Generation III+ reactor with fully passive safety systems, modular construction design and has the smallest footprint per MWe on the market. In addition to the two AP1000 units being prepared for start-up at the Vogtle site in the United States, four AP1000 units are currently setting operational performance records in China with four additional units under construction and two more units recently approved for construction. Westinghouse’s AP1000 technology also has been selected for nine units in Ukraine and is under consideration at multiple sites in Central and Eastern Europe, the United Kingdom and in the United States.