Southern Ga Vogtle 1 reactor up to 94 pct power

NEW YORK, Oct 26 (Reuters) - Southern Co's (SO.N) 1,152-megawatt Unit 1 at the Vogtle nuclear power station in Georgia ramped up to 94 percent power by early Monday from 28 percent early Friday after exiting a refueling outage last week, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a report.

The unit shut by Sept. 21.

The unit last shut for refueling from about March 16-April 23, 2008. It is on an 18 month refueling cycle.

The 2,301 MW Vogtle station is in Waynesboro in Burke County about 105 miles southwest of Columbia, South Carolina. There are two units at the station: the 1,152 MW Unit 1, which entered service in 1987, and the 1,149 MW Unit 2 (1989).

The NRC in June 2009 extended the unit's original 40 year operating licenses for another 20 years until 2047 and 2049.

Unit 2 continued to operate at full power.

One MW powers about 500 homes in Georgia.

Southern's Southern Nuclear Operating Co operates the station for its owners, including Southern's Georgia Power (45.7 percent), Oglethorpe Power Corp (30 percent), Municipal Electrical Authority of Georgia (22.7 percent) and the City of Dalton (1.6 percent).

In 2006, Southern Nuclear filed with the NRC for an early site permit to build two new reactors at Vogtle.

In 2008, Southern applied with the NRC to build two new reactors at Vogtle. The NRC, which accepted the application in May 2008, expects to take about 42 months to hold a hearing and make a decision.

Also in 2008, Georgia Power, Toshiba Corp (6502.T)/Shaw Group Inc's SGR.N Westinghouse Electric Co and Shaw's Stone & Webster subsidiary agreed to build two Westinghouse 1,100 MW AP1000 reactors at Vogtle.

In March 2009, Georgia regulators certified Georgia Power's plan to build two new reactors at Vogtle. Georgia Power has said the new reactors could enter service in 2016 and 2017.

That plan includes construction work in progress (CWIP) financing, which will allow Southern to recover costs from customers while developing and building the new reactors starting in 2011.

Without cost recovery, Georgia Power has said its part of the cost would be about $6.4 billion. With cost recovery, the company has said its costs would be closer to $4.4 billion.

Southern, of Atlanta, owns and operates more than 42,000 MW of generating capacity, markets energy commodities, and transmits and distributes electricity to nearly 4.4 million customers in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida. (Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by John Picinich)