Fire temporarily puts Plant Vogtle on alert
A transformer fire at Plant Vogtle put the facility on alert for more than two hours Tuesday afternoon. The fire was located near the plant’s Unit 1 and Unit 2 reactors, the plant’s original units built in the 1980s.
An alert, according to a statement released by Georgia Power, is issued when an event occurs “that could reduce that plant’s level of safety.” Out of four levels of emergency classification, ‘alert’ is the second lowest.
The alert was issued at around noon and ended at 2:36 p.m. Georgia Power and Burke County officials said nobody was hurt and public safety was never threatened.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission performed a regular inspection on the plant on June 27. Part of that inspection included a review of how reactors are safely shut down in the event of a fire. In its report, the NRC stated that it found “No findings or violations of more than minor significance” during the inspection.
Plant Vogtle recently announced commercial operation had begun on Unit 4, the facility’s newest reactor. Unit 3 became operational in 2023. They are the first new nuclear reactors in the United States in more than 30 years. It is estimated that the final cost of the construction project – which went approximately seven years longer than original estimations – was about $35 billion.
