Westinghouse and its partner The Shaw Group have signed a $7.65 billion engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract with Progress Energy Florida for two AP1000 units.
Progress Energy has estimated that the total cost of the two units – to be built at its 5100 acre Levy County site in Florida – will be about $14 billion including land price, plant components, financing costs, construction, labour, regulatory fees and reactor fuel. It plans to spend an additional $3 billion on transmission equipment and lines.
The company said that the units should be operational in the 2016 to 2018 time frame, however the project is dependent on the approval of the combined licence application (COL) that was submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in August.
The project has already been approved by the Florida Public Service Commission, which certified the need for clean, carbon-free electricity in the state. However certification of the Levy site as suitable for nuclear development by the Florida Environmental Department of Environmental Protection is still needed. A decision on this is expected by the end of the year.
This announcement marks the third EPC contract awarded to Westinghouse for its AP1000 the USA. In 2008, agreements were signed to build two-unit plants at both the Vogtle site near Waynesboro, Georgia and at the V.C. Summer site in Jenkinsville, South Carolina.
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