Dungeness B Moves Into Early Retirement

• EDF Energy will move its twin 545 megawatt advanced gas reactors at Dungeness B into defueling "with immediate effect," the EDF subsidiary announced Jun. 7 (NIW Apr.9'21). The decision comes nearly three years after the reactors on the UK's southeast coast went off line in September 2018 for repairs, and after some £200 million ($282 million) in expenditures meant to extend the plant's operating life beyond a 2028 closure. "Much of this money was invested in improvements to the fabric of the plant, for example we replaced more than 8 km of pipework, and will stand the site in good stead as it enters the defueling process," an EDF Energy spokesperson told Energy Intelligence. "It was early in this outage that we identified the corrosion and main steam line issues and most of the investment we have made over the past three years was focused on resolving these issues." But more recent analysis "further highlighted additional station-specific risks within some key components, including parts within the fuel assemblies," said the announcement. • Within a year Poland hopes to have a technical and financial feasibility proposal for a Polish newbuild program delivered by Westinghouse and Bechtel, alongside "a financial scheme agreed between our government, the company, and the American government and American agencies," Polish Secretary of State for Strategic Energy Infrastructure Piotr Naimski said this week. While the US-based firms will play a key role in shaping the program, Warsaw has yet to commit to any US reactor supply (NIW Oct.23'20). "We need a proven technology, a partner willing to stay with us, take the risk of the investment with us, share the risk with us, and stay with us not only for 20 years," said Naimski. He spoke on a panel with Andrea Lockwood, who heads the US Department of Energy's work in the region, and who gave the clearest sign yet that the administration of US President Joe Biden will push nuclear exports as aggressively as that of his predecessor. "We are looking to get a larger share of the nuclear market," said Lockwood, and the department is working with the US Export-Import bank, the Development Finance Corp. and other agencies "to expand support for nuclear power." • A key consultant to the Georgia Public Service Commission predicted this week that US utility Georgia Power's Vogtle-3 will not achieve commercial operation until next summer and that the utility's baseline 2018 forecast total project cost of $17.1 billion for the twin AP1000s will be exceeded by $2 billion (NIW May21'21). In written testimony Jun. 7 on Georgia Power's 24th semiannual Vogtle Construction Monitoring report, Donald Grace said that he and two other members of the Vogtle Monitoring Group concluded that the two AP1000s will miss their commercial operation targets of November 2021 and November 2022 "by roughly [seven to nine] months, or more," and that "given the approach of 'spending whatever it takes'" the approved cost "will be exceeded by" roughly $2 billion. Georgia Power testified in May that its forecast total cost is now $17.8 billion, of which its share is $8.7 billion. It is sticking by its January 2022 operation date for Unit 3 and November 2022 for Unit 4, according to a utility spokesman.