After two years of no integrated project schedule (IPS), Georgia Power tried to get the the elected Public Service Commissioners to tell it how to enforce a contract for Plant Vogtle that Georgia Power brought to them. This video clip ends with formerly staunch pro-nuclear Commissioner H. Doug Everett saying any company that did that probably would be imprudent. And Everett also said:
We haven’t seen any results.
Georgia Power’s representative, I think Rob Trokey, said:
We have agreed haven’t we that the company does not manage this project. They oversee it, they may report to this commission the status of it, but it does not manage this project.
Answer from the Commission:
It doesn’t.
So who does? According to Georgia Power:
The contractors.
The PSC asked:
From the executives on down, this has been a longstanding issue. Six years into the project, we’ve got to get something tangible. Somebody has to be held responsible.
The Georgia Power rep. then wanted a precise definition of the prudence standard being used.
Thanks to Claudia Musleve Collier for
this video by Community Activism, with this description on YouTube:
“On Tuesday, December 16, the Georgia Public Service Commission held
public hearings to report on the progress of construction at Vogtle
Nuclear Plants 3&4. This is quite an interesting discussion as to
whether two PSC construction monitors thought Ga. Power was
imprudent in not securing an Integrated Project Schedule (IPS) 6
years into the project.”
Here’s the UTILITIES DIVISION AGENDA FOR ADMINISTRATIVE SESSION TUESDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2014 10:00 A.M. and this appears to be the item:
R-7. DOCKET NO. 32539: Georgia Power Company Nuclear Construction Financing Cost Recovery Tariff: Consideration of Georgia Power Company’s Nuclear Construction Cost Recovery Update. (Rob Trokey, Tom Newsome)
Some more of the participants are mentioned in this article by Sonal Patel, Powermag.com, 10 December 2014, Construction Monitor: Longer Delays Are Likely for Vogtle Reactors,
The consortium building the project had originally projected the first of the two AP1000 reactors would be operational in April 2016.
But Dr. William Jacobs, Jr., the Georgia Public Service Commission’s (PSC’s) independent construction monitor for the Plant Vogtle expansion, and Steven Roetger, who is among the staff involved in providing oversight of the project, now say in the Nov. 21-released report that “it is impossible to determine a reasonable forecast range as to when the units could be commercially available.”
Back at the PSC, the Commissioners had some discussion about whether they’d seen a reasonable schedule or whether Plant Vogtle was on budget.
The Georgia Power rep. then asked and a PSC member (Tim Echols, I think) responded:
gapower: I assume that you know what a reasonable manager would do under the circumstances. How would you get the IPS from the contractor?
PSC: That’s not my problem.
gapower: No, it is your problem.
PSC: Not it is not.
gapower (talking over): …because you’re saying that…
No! No! It is not. The ratepayers, this Commission, never contracted with this EPC. You came to us with a signed, sealed document, with a regulatory power. This is your contract, Georgia Power’s contract. It is your responsibility. It says in the contract; the language is in our testimony; that they are required to supply you with an IPS. Otherwise they are in breach of contract. Have you filed anything down in federal court?
gapower: Yes.
PSC: …that suggests they’re in breach of contract for not filing an IPS.
gapower: There’s a lawsuit pending.
PSC: Specifically for an IPS?
gapower: There’s a lawsuit pending.
PSC: Does it address the IPS?
He never got an answer, and the Georgia Power rep. started talking over him again. Someone had to remind the Georgia Power rep. that he wasn’t the one asking the questions. Which only led to the Georgia Power rep. trying to answer for the PSC. Producing this response:
PSC: I would suggest that if you have gone two years without a satisfactory IPS, and it’s well defined what that is, and you’ve done nothing about it, or not nothing about it, but you’ve not been able to affect positive change, then yes, we’ve got the right to question what’s going on.
gapower: So what would you do as a reasonable manager different from what the company is doing.
PSC: I’m not going to answer that question, because I’m not party to the contract.
gapower: I’m not trying to argue (talking over again)…
PSC: You’ve had every opportunity of rebuttal to explain to the Commission what you will do. It’s your contract, why don’t you tell them what to do?
gapower: Well, here’s my difficulty, and Dr. Jacobs you understand this from past proceedings. It is important when one makes an allegation that one is bound to meet a reasonable manager standard. It is important to define what that reasonable manager would have done. What should we have done differently than we have done in order to try to get the IPS schedule from the contractor. That’s my simple question.
He got an answer from a differnet Commissioner, and I recognize H. Doug Everett, because he’s the Commissioner for my district.
Everett: Well, I don’t know what you have done, so it’s hard to answer.
gapower: So how is it that we can say that we’ve been acting imprudently.
Everett: Because you don’t have an integrated project schedule that all parties have seen and have agreed to and are working towards.
gapower: But doesn’t prudence relate to conduct and activity as opposed to results.
Everett: Yes, generally, but results are important.
Georgia Power continued to argue. Then this gem:
gapower: All you really know are the results.
Everett: We haven’t seen any results.
The Georgia Power rep. then admitted once again nobody had seen an IPS. Eventually his colleague stood up from the witness table and shushed him.
Not that that stopped him. He did stop talking over Commissioners, but he kept badgering the Commission to define how Georgia Power should enforce its own contract.
gapower: Do you understand that the company has been asking the consortium for their IPS schedule?
I’m guessing he was referring to the Westinghouse-Shaw consortium, as in this from Southern Company’s Plant Vogtle milestones for April 2009:
Georgia Power provided the Westinghouse-Shaw consortium full notice to proceed on Plant Vogtle Units 3 and 4. Shaw and Westinghouse began mobilizing at the plant site and performing activities to support construction.
The same Westinghouse-led consortium that Georgia Power had already been suting for two years a year ago, according to Anya Litvak, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 20 October 2013, Westinghouse clashes with Georgia Power over nuclear plant cost overruns,
The project, originally estimated to cost $14 billion, is now between 18 and 21 months behind schedule and $900 million overbudget.
Westinghouse and its construction partner, Stone & Webster, have had to make a number of changes to the original design plan that was the basis for the 2008 contract with Georgia Power and several other part-owners. According to Westinghouse, those changes and their costs were the result of new regulations by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, including a requirement finalized in 2010 that buildings that house nuclear reactors must be able to withstand an airplane crash.
Georgia Power, which is owned by Atlanta-based Southern Co., says deficiencies in Westinghouse’s designs and the contractors’ execution of the work racked up the overruns. Therefore, Westinghouse should pay the costs.
Back to the hearings:
Everett: I guess I don’t know what form that asking has taken. We’ve asked the question numerous times and we’ve heard that there are commercial negotiations. I don’t know what the company does.
gapower: And if [?] is similarly situated and the owners don’t have an IPS the same would be true.
Everett: I don’t know.
gapower: If they were similarly situated, they would be imprudent also?
Everett: I would say yes.
Georgia Power then tried to deflect to what the South Carolina Public Service Commission does.
Somebody explain to me why elected Public Service Commissioners have to make excuses for why they are asking questions of a regulated public utility? Also why they let a multi-billion dollar project continue with no schedule while the utility claims it doesn’t manage the project?
I’ve got an idea how to get the contractors to provide a schedule: stop paying them until they do!
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article also said:
…a new nuclear project may be the hardest large-scale construction venture to keep on schedule and on budget, because of the cost, the regulations, and the infrequency of such events.
Here’s another idea: let’s stop trying to do the impossible and get on with faster, cheaper, on-schedule, on-budget, and far cleaner solar power.
-jsq
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