A tar pit awaits Santee Cooper’s RFP applicants

The South Carolina Public Service Authority, also known as Santee Cooper electric, has announced that it has closed its January 22, 2025 “Request For Proposals” (RFP) to gauge the potential interest of any new buyers to resume the financing  and construction of the abandoned V.C. Summer Units 2 and 3 nuclear power project with nearly $10 billion sunk and only half finished. Neither Santee Cooper nor Dominion Energy have stepped up to take responsibility for the still substantial financial risk and many stubbornly unanswered questions remaining as to what it might be needed to restart and finish construction to make  the electric power plant competitively operational.

With the May 5, 2025 deadline for RFPs now closed, Santee Cooper said they had received a “robust response” from “leading construction, financial, utility, and technology firms from around the world.” The anticipated review process and due diligence estimated to evaluate the respondents will likely take 9 to 18 months to complete.

Under the previous shared ownership of SCANA Corp (now subsumed into Dominion Energy) and Santee Cooper, the original cost had been projected at $9.8 billion to complete V.C. Summer Units 2 and 3.  The project was launched in 2008 with the submission of a combined construction and operations license application to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).  The two-unit application relied upon an NRC certified Toshiba/Westinghouse Electric AP1000 advanced pressurized water reactor design which got its NRC permit in March 2012 and started construction in 2013.  However, the project financially collapsed under recurring construction delays, cost overruns and nine controversial electric rate hikes that still wound up insufficient to finance the construction in advance.  Construction was abandoned and the project mothballed in July 2017. Westinghouse Electric filed for bankruptcy on the failure of cost-of-completion and time-to-completion of its AP1000 design. Westinghouse emerged from bankruptcy after being purchased by Brookfield Business Partners, a Canadian private equity fund. It was then sold  to a consortium of Brookfield Renewable Partners and Cameco, a Canadian nuclear fuel and services company.