South Carolina Gov., utility think sale could keep abandoned nuclear plant alive

All or part of Santee Cooper is up for sale after Summer nuclear plant hit difficulties.

South Carolina’s state-owned utility Santee Cooper announced recently that it would have to walk away from its 45 percent share of two nuclear reactors being built at the Summer nuclear plant in Fairfield County. The decision to abandon the Summer project was essentially a death knell for the unfinished reactors—SCANA Corp, the 55 percent owner, couldn’t complete the project on its own and Santee Cooper had tried selling its share to Duke Energy years before to no avail. Without generous government assistance, Santee Cooper stood to lose billions.

But with the reality of an abandoned nuclear project on the state’s hands, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster says he’s in talks again with Duke Energy—as well as with Southern Power Co. of Atlanta and Dominion Energy of Richmond, VA—to sell “some or all” of the publicly-owned utility, according to South Carolina’s Post and Courier.
Santee Cooper also told the paper that it had recently heard from two potential buyers interested in taking over the utility’s portion of the Summer nuclear plant, and a spokeswoman said that the company was reaching out to other potential buyers as well.

SCANA would not comment to the Post and Courier on whether it would resume the project if a buyer for Santee Cooper’s share of Summer was found, but last week SCANA’s CEO Kevin Marsh said his company would have continued building the plant were it not for Santee Cooper’s exit.

The news offers a shred of hope for the nuclear industry in the US. Both Summer and a similar project in Georgia at the Vogtle plant have been running billions of dollars over budget and are years late due to mismanagement and issues with the new reactors built by Toshiba’s Westinghouse, which filed for bankruptcy earlier this year.

Southern Co. owns 47.5 percent of the Vogtle plant, and last week the utility seemed to be more optimistic about that plant’s completion, noting that it cut a better deal with Westinghouse in bankruptcy proceedings and that the reactors are further along in the construction process. Still, Southern didn’t preclude walking away from the potentially $25 billion plant and said it would make its final decision to stay or to walk away later in August.