Chadbourne & Parke LLP represented the US Department of Energy (DOE) as transaction counsel in connection with loan guarantees for up to US$6.5 billion in loans to Georgia Power Company and Oglethorpe Power Corporation to finance the construction of their shares of the 2,200 MW expansion of the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant in Burke County, Georgia. The plant is first new nuclear power facility under construction in the US in more than 30 years.
The loan guarantees were issued on February 20, 2014 for up to US$3.5 billion in loans for Georgia Power Company, and up to US$3 billion in loans for Oglethorpe Power Corporation, respectively.
Chadbourne is also representing DOE as transaction counsel in connection with proposed loan guarantees for up to US$1.8 billion in loans for the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia with respect to its share in the project.
The project involves the addition of two Westinghouse AP1000 Generation III reactors at Plant Vogtle, which currently has two older generation pressurized water reactors in operation. The project is the first deployment of the Westinghouse AP1000 Generation III reactor in the United States. The AP1000 reactor is an evolutionary improvement over older generation reactors, and includes advanced safety features such as the ability to shutdown passively without external power or human intervention. When completed, the project will provide a large-scale source of baseload power that is carbon-free and does not generate greenhouse gases.
Chadbourne partners Peter Fitzgerald, Marissa Leigh Alcala and Scott Berson and senior counsel Lynne Gedanken led the team on these loan guarantee transactions for Georgia Power Corporation and Oglethorpe Power Corporation, which included core team members Mark Sigrist, Matt Gurch, Colin Temme and Ginger Collier. Additional support was provided to the team by Kenneth Johnson, Andrew Skroback, Marjorie Glover, Donna Bobbish, Simon Stevens, Rebecca Abou-Chedid, Todd Alexander, Lee Gordon, Marco DeSousa, A. Robert Colby, Sue Cowell, Andrew Giaccia, Thomas Hall, John Marciano, Ted Markson, Ted Zink, Frank Vazquez, Eric Daucher, Kirsten Carlson, Chadron Edwards, Adrienne Sebring and Meghan Towers.
