South Carolina Nuclear Reboot: More Twists and Turns

Last month this blog posted a story about the possible rebirth of the abandoned, partially constructed VC Summer nuclear power plant in South Carolina. After state-owned Santee Cooper and what was then South Carolina Electric and Gas pulled the plug on the project, SCANA, SCE&G’s parent, filed for bankruptcy. Dominion Energy bought SCANA, while NextEra Energy made a failed bid for Santee Cooper. This morning, NextEra announced that it will acquire Dominion in an all-stock deal. The timing is interesting because just last week, the South Carolina Public Service Commission approved a $5 billion 2,200 MW natural gas project to be jointly constructed by Dominion and Santee Cooper. This was subsequent to the December MOU between Santee Cooper and Brookfield Asset Management to potentially restart construction on the Summer facility. Additionally, earlier this month Brookfield established a partnership with The Nuclear Company for the project. While the NextEra-Dominion merger is subject to multiple layers of regulatory approval, It will be interesting to see what impact, if any, it could have on the proposed Summer construction restart.