Santee Cooper, South Carolina’s state-owned electric and water utility, has launched a Request for Proposals (RFP) to acquire and complete or propose alternatives for two partially constructed generating units at the Virgil C Summer Nuclear Power Station in Fairfield County, South Carolina.
The decision to revive the mothballed units is the result of “advanced manufacturing investments, AI-driven data center demand, and the tech industry's zero-carbon targets," according to president and CEO of Santee Cooper, Jimmy Staton. "Considering the long timelines required to bring new nuclear units online, Santee Cooper has a unique opportunity to explore options for Summer Units 2 and 3 and their related assets that could allow someone to generate reliable, carbon emissions-free electricity on a meaningfully shortened timeline."
The VC station currently has one operational unit with a capacity of 973MW. The original expansion of the site commenced in 2008 when Santee Cooper - then known as South Carolina Electric & Gas - applied to build two 1.1GW AP1000 pressurized water reactors on site. The following year, the utility signed an engineering, procurement, and construction contract with Westinghouse to construct the reactors, with costs estimated at $9.8 billion.
