Another month’s delay, another $33 million in cost overruns for the Kemper County power plant.
Mississippi Power said in its monthly report to the state Public Service Commission on Monday that it expects the plant to start running on lignite by Nov. 30. The company had been forecasting an Oct. 31 start date.
The latest delay raises the total estimated cost of the project — which is more than two years behind schedule — to about $6.9 billion.
Mississippi Power spokesman Jeff Shepard said the utility needs the extra month to prepare both of the plant’s gasifiers to produce electricity using synthesis gas, or “syngas” and to integrate the plant’s systems necessary for both of the plant’s combustion turbines to simultaneously generate electricity.
“The company also revised the cost estimate subject to the cost cap for the Kemper project to include an additional $33 million,” Shepard said in an email. “This includes approximately $5 million for repairs, modifications and mechanical improvements and approximately $28 million related to the schedule extension.”
These costs will be paid by Mississippi Power and its Atlanta-based parent Southern Co., and not Mississippi Power customers, he said.
Shepard stressed that the project is still moving toward completion. The plant’s first gasifer started converting lignite to syngas in July, and the second gasifer began operating in September. The plant currently runs on natural gas.
The announcement of the delay came on the same day that Mississippi ratepayers were able to gain more information about plant operations through a Public Service Commission “discovery docket,” or electronic file on the commission’s website related to the Kemper facility.
Through the docket, ratepayers can examine documents related to the plant and ask questions of both the commission and Mississippi Power about the project.
The docket includes an overview of Mississippi Power’s procedures and controls to manage the development and operation of the project; accounting procedures and the company’s performance expectations for the plant’s first five years of operation.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
- Look for the "Republish This Story" button underneath each story. To republish online, simply click the button, copy the html code and paste into your Content Management System (CMS).
- Editorial cartoons and photo essays are not included under the Creative Commons license and therefore do not have the "Republish This Story" button option. To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.
- You have to credit Mississippi Today. We prefer “Author Name, Mississippi Today” in the byline. If you’re not able to add the byline, please include a line at the top of the story that reads: “This story was originally published by Mississippi Today” and include our website, mississippitoday.org.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You cannot republish our editorial cartoons, photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission (contact our managing editor Kayleigh Skinner for more information). To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- Our stories may appear on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- You can only publish select stories individually — not as a collection.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.