This summer marks the 25th anniversary of the start of operations of Unit 2 at Georgia Power's Plant Vogtle near Waynesboro, Ga.  Since first coming online in 1989, the 1,215 megawatt (MW) unit has operated continuously – safely and cleanly powering thousands of homes and businesses and employing thousands of residents from the surrounding communities.

Plant Vogtle, jointly owned by Georgia Power and several other Georgia electric utilities, is operated by Southern Nuclear and sits on more than 3,000 acres on the banks of the Savannah River. The plant is a flagship of Georgia Power's generation fleet and one of just two nuclear generation facilities in Georgia, including Plant Hatch near Baxley, Ga. The plant's twin cooling towers, which release clean water vapor as part of the plant's cooling process, measure more than 540 feet tall and are instantly recognizable as local landmarks.

Since 1989, Plant Vogtle Unit 2 has:

—  Produced nearly 225 million megawatt hours of electricity – enough energy to powerAtlanta's Turner Field for more than 9,000 years or the city of Atlanta for more than three decades.
—  Safely operated at, or near, full capacity with a lifetime "capacity factor" average of 90.5 percent.
—  Provided more than 1,000 full-time positions in engineering, maintenance and other functions to safely and efficiently operate units 1 and 2 every day. Plant Vogtle has also employed thousands of additional part-time and temporary workers for refueling outages over the years.
—  Contributed millions of dollars in taxes paid to Burke County and local municipalities. Georgia Power estimates that the company and co-owners have paid nearly $500 million in total taxes for Plant Vogtle (including units 1-4) since the project began in the 1970s.

Nuclear energy continues to be an essential part of Georgia Power's long-term, strategic plan for providing energy to Georgians over the next 60 years.  The 25th anniversary of Vogtle Unit 2 illustrates the safety, reliability and sustainability of nuclear generation as the construction of two of the first new nuclear units to be built in the United States in three decades progresses on the Plant Vogtle site. The construction of Vogtle units 3 and 4 is the largest job-producing project in the state, employing approximately 5,000 people during peak construction and creating 800 permanent jobs when the plant begins operating. Once Unit 3 enters service in 2017, followed by Unit 4 in 2018, Plant Vogtle will be the only four-unit nuclear facility in the country.