Deal reached on Vogtle cost overruns | The Augusta Chronicle

ATLANTA — Southern Co. has agreed to drop its request to raise its construction budget for Plant Vogtle and will instead seek permission to recover that money as it spends on the massive project, utility CEO Tom Fanning said Wednesday.

If approved, the agreement would raise the financial risk on Southern Co. as it tries to control the costs of building two more nuclear reactors at the plant.

Regulators in Georgia review construction spending in six-month intervals and decide whether those costs can be passed along to utility customers. Under the preliminary deal, Southern Co. subsidiary Georgia Power would drop its request to raise the total project budget by $737 million to a total of $6.85 billion.

Instead, the utility would only seek approval right now for $209 million it spent on the project for the six-month period ending in December. Going forward, the utility would seek approval of its costs on a similar schedule.

via Deal reached on Vogtle cost overruns | The Augusta Chronicle.