Westinghouse warned SCANA executives their $9 billion nuclear project had major problems.

But SCANA kept the critical 2014 Estimate At Completion report a secret from regulators at the Public Service Commission and Office of Regulatory Staff.

SCANA had been promised a new, fully integrated schedule in May 2014. They got it 3 months and millions of dollars later.

The EAC blamed setbacks on delays at Westinghouse’s Lake Charles facility.

“The schedule was eagerly awaited and it kept getting pushed back until August, when it was finally shown in a controlled, limited format,” Office of Regulatory Staff Communications Manager Ron Aiken said.

“This upset the company. Not only didn’t they get a date they could trust, they didn’t believe the financial picture, an additional $578 million to finish. They knew it was low, because this was a cost-plus structure.

“In layman’s terms, it means I could tell you I can build an addition to your home for $10,000, but if the real price happens to be $20,000 based on delays, you must pay me $20,000.

“Late in the game they went to a fixed-price contract and the contractor eats the overage, but by then it was too late.”

“To know what its costs would be, SCANA put together their top people who dropped everything and worked on a report for about 6 weeks, a significant allocation of resources that SCANA tried to downplay at the PSC hearings,” Edwards said.

“That group’s internal calculations showed that SCANA’s likely cost would be north of $1 billion.

The forecast showed the project would finish sometime in 2036-37. The $2 billion in federal tax credits depended on both units being finished by 2020.

With an added $1 billion in costs from delays, SCANA knew the project was likely to cost $3 billion more than the PSC, ORS or investors were aware of.

“Instead of sharing that with the PSC in 2015, SCANA filed for a $578 million rate increase. Company execs on the stand continued to state they believed Westinghouse would honor its commitment to do it for $578 million.”