Southern Company subsidiary Georgia Power has received the first nuclear fuel shipment for one of the two new reactors located at the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant near Waynesboro, the company announced Wednesday.

The shipment is a significant milestone for the nuclear expansion project at the plant as Vogtle’s Unit 3 and Unit 4, the only commercial reactor units currently under construction in the U.S., move closer to in-service operations.

In order to receive the nuclear fuel, the critical infrastructure of Unit 3, such as the fuel vault and spent fuel pool, had to be completed and inspected to ensure they met construction quality and design requirements.

The Vogtle expansion has faced a series of delays that have put the project years behind schedule, including setbacks this spring and summer due to the need to reduce the size of the workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic. The cost of the nuclear plant expansion has nearly doubled from the estimated $14 billion price tag when it was approved 11 years ago.

During the course of 2020, progress at Plant Vogtle has passed several other milestones in the construction of Unit 3, including the completion of cold hydro testing, closed vessel testing and open vessel testing as well as the structural integrity test and integrated leak rate test.

The next hurdle for Unit 3 will be hot functional testing — a series of tests that is the last critical step before fuel load and in-service operation.

Georgia Power expects that fuel load for Unit 3 will happen in April 2021 ahead of a November 2021 regulatory deadline.

The company announced at the end of October that a leadership transition is planned to coincide with loading the nuclear fuel into the reactor. CEO Paul Bowers will step down in April and Chris Womack, executive vice president and president of external affairs for Southern Company, will assume the top role.

Womack, who will be the first Black CEO in the company’s nearly 120-year history, said his first priority will be “getting Vogtle 3 and 4 across the line.”

“When Vogtle comes online it has an immediate effect on our fuel costs, so prices go down when it comes in,” Bowers told Atlanta Business Chronicle in October.

Once they are operational, the two new units at Plant Vogtle will be able to power more than 500,000 homes and businesses, according to Georgia Power.

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