Regulators delay Vogtle decision until first reactor is complete

Dive Summary:

The Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) voted Tuesday to delay the debate over the costs of Georgia Power's Vogtle plant overruns until 2018 at the earliest, when the first of two reactors under construction is expected to be complete.
Georgia Power, a subsidiary of Southern Company, will withdraw its request to budget the increase by $737 million up to to $6.85 billion total. The PSC will continue monitoring the project's spending.
To make matters worse, the utility is also embroiled in a legal dispute with the Vogtle plant's designers and builders. The delay saves Georgia Power from a messy public hearing which would come on top of a rate case in Georgia and its over-budget coal gasification plant project in Mississippi.

From the article:

“Utility regulators said they were concerned that forcing Southern Co. to discuss its budget issues in public now might hurt its stance at the bargaining table.”