Location: Georgia, USA

Falcon Steel America’s Contribution:

Georgia Power invited Falcon Steel America to participate in building a 500kV transmission line from Thomson to Vogtle, Georgia. Vogtle is the location of Georgia Power’s 2 nuclear power plants expected to be operational in 2019.

This transmission line will distribute the power generated from the new nuclear plants. Falcon Steel is fabricating, galvanizing, and delivering 192 towers including fasteners. This is approximately 4,500 tons of steel, which we expect to complete in December of 2015.

Falcon Steel America also designed and fabricated (8) 500kv H-frame dead end structures consisting of approximately 500 tons of steel for the lines to connect to the surrounding stations.

All structures were delivered ahead of schedule. Falcon Steel provided a representative onsite to oversee and assist the erection onsite construction crew as a value-added service.

Project Description:

To support the additional generation from the new units, Georgia Power’s determined that its infrastructure must be upgraded. The existing transmission system is not adequate to reliably transport the additional electrical power from Plant Vogtle to their customers.

The Thomson-Vogtle 500 kV transmission line is being built to add the necessary transmission infrastructure to support the two new nuclear units. The line route is 55 miles long and begins at Plant Vogtle in Waynesboro, Ga. (Burke County) and ends at the Thomson Primary substation, southeast of Thomson, Ga. (McDuffie County).

The route runs through Burke, Jefferson, Warren and McDuffie counties and existing transmission line corridors were utilized over approximately 13 miles of the line route.

Construction is underway on two new nuclear operating units at Plant Vogtle, near Augusta, Ga. Building the two new nuclear units will help meet the needs of Georgia Power customers in 2019 and beyond.

The two new units are scheduled to be in service in 2019 and 2020. These will allow Georgia Power to continue to provide it’s customers with reliable service for many years to come.

Both units will be operational by 2020. Unit 3 will come on line in 2019 and Unit 4 in 2020. Each unit will produce 1,100 MW of electricity for a total increase of 2,200 MW. One MW of electricity will serve 800 to 1,000 households.

Upon completion of the new units, Plant Vogtle will produce enough power to serve 1.4 million homes. Building the two new nuclear units will help meet the electrical needs of Georgia Power customers in 2019 and beyond.