Report outlines economic benefits from US plant completion

The report - The Economic Impact of a Two-Unit Westinghouse AP1000 Project at VC Summer - has been prepared for Westinghouse and its owners, Brookfield and Cameco, by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC).

It estimates that completing the two-unit project would support an economic footprint in South Carolina of USD7.3 billion over the seven-year manufacturing, engineering and installation phase, and 51,400 person-years of employment over this period, equating, on average, to some 7,300 jobs. The installation would also have "significant impacts elsewhere in the United States", the report notes, adding an estimated USD13.8 billion to national GDP over seven years when direct, indirect and induced effects are taken into account.

Once completed, the 2,300 MWe of nuclear capacity from the two AP1000 units would be enough to power at least 1.5 million homes in South Carolina. In operation, the report estimates the plant would add USD1.6 billion per year to South Carolina's GDP and support 2,700 jobs annually, with the state-level economic impact supported by plans to manufacture nuclear fuel within South Carolina and to use its existing supply chain and shipping ports. Over an operating lifetime expected to last at least 80 years, the report estimates the plant would add a cumulative total of some USD130 billion to South Carolina's GDP.

Work on the VC Summer units was suspended in 2017, when its joint owners, Scana subsidiary South Carolina Electric & Gas Company (SCE&G) and Santee Cooper, decided to abandon the project when vendor Westinghouse filed for bankrupty. SCE&G (now Dominion Energy South Carolina) transferred its interest in the assets to Santee Cooper in 2018.

Earlier this year, Santee Cooper started looking for proposals from parties interested in acquiring and completing the two units, and in October, announced that it had selected Brookfield Asset Management for further negotiations.

"South Carolina is poised to become a national leader in the deployment of advanced new nuclear generation," Westinghouse Interim CEO Dan Sumner said. "This report highlights that the two AP1000 units at VC Summer would generate lasting economic benefits for the state, creating thousands of high-paying, highly skilled jobs while supporting the future expansion of South Carolina's industrial base."

There are currently six AP1000 reactors in operation around the world, including two units at the Vogtle plant in Georgia, which were at a similar stage of construction to Summer at the time the South Carolina project was abandoned. Vogtle's owners - Southern Company's Georgia Power, Oglethorpe Power, MEAG Power and Dalton Utilities - opted to continue with the project, which saw Vogtle 3 and 4 become the first new nuclear units to be constructed in the USA in more than 30 years, entering commercial operation in 2023 and 2024 respectively.