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South Carolina utility Santee Cooper is seeking buyers to restart construction of two stalled nuclear reactor projects nearly a decade after they were halted.

Why it matters: Electricity providers are pursuing once-unthinkable energy projects to meet soaring demand from power-hungry AI and data centers.

Flashback: Santee Cooper CEO Jimmy Staton told state lawmakers last week that the utility would issue a request for proposals "to gauge interest" in completing a pair of mothballed reactors at V.C. Summer Nuclear Station.

"Santee Cooper does not plan to be the owner, nor do we intend to be the operator of whatever comes there," Staton said. "But we do believe there are groups out there that are interested in potentially completing the work at V.C. Summer."

The latest: Santee Cooper has hired investment bank Centerview Partners to solicit potential buyers, a source familiar tells Axios.

Santee Cooper hopes to build a consortium of buyers comprising a construction firm, a tech company, and deep-pocketed financial partners, the source said.

Centerview Partners declined to comment. A spokesperson for Santee Cooper told Axios that the utility "is interested in getting value back for our customers from the unfinished V.C. Summer project."

The Wall Street Journal first reported on Centerview's role this morning.

Zoom out: Fourteen banks, including Bank of America, Barclays, Brookfield, Citi, Goldman Sachs, Guggenheim Securities and Morgan Stanley, signed a letter in September signaling their support for nuclear energy development.

Catch up quick: Santee Cooper in 2017 paused the reactors' construction, after the project lost $9 billion over four years and drove reactor maker Westinghouse Electric into bankruptcy.

Analysts at the time estimated that completing the 1,000 MW reactors would ultimately cost $23 billion, more than twice the initial estimate.

Context: Two other reactors under construction at the time, Units 3 and 4 at Plant Vogtle in Georgia, cost about $30 billion.

The bill for completing the V.C. Summer reactors will likely reach into the tens of billions of dollars, the source familiar tells Axios.

State of play: Nuclear energy is the single largest source of 24/7 zero-emissions electricity in the U.S. Santee Cooper meanwhile aims to halve its emissions by 2031, CEO Staton said last week.

Between the lines: The project would likely qualify for investment and production tax credits implemented in the Inflation Reduction Act, Nicholas McMurray, of nonprofit nuclear energy champion ClearPath, tells Axios.

"With the Vogtle reactors online and operating, there are a lot of lessons learned," McMurray says. "V.C. Summer can be done in a way that's much more timely — more on-time and on-budget."

Santee Cooper seeking buyers to restart V.C. Summer nuclear plant

The utility is taking an extraordinary step to meet demand.

A photo of V.C. Summer Nuclear Plant, on the shore of Lake Monticello, with an orange sky at dusk or at dawn in the background.

V.C. Summer nuclear plant, seen from nearby Lake Monticello. Photo: Sammy Fretwell/The State/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

South Carolina utility Santee Cooper is seeking buyers to restart construction of two stalled nuclear reactor projects nearly a decade after they were halted.Why it matters: Electricity providers are pursuing once-unthinkable energy projects to meet soaring demand from <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="power-hungry AI and" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/pro/climate-deals/2025/01/21/data-centers-onsite-power" data-vars-content-id="3fd8d529-1583-48f7-8515-337e1dcf182d" data-vars-headline="Santee Cooper seeking buyers to restart V.C. Summer nuclear plant" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/pro/climate-deals/2025/01/21/data-centers-onsite-power" target="_self">power-hungry AI and</a> <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="data centers" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/pro/climate-deals/2024/09/11/ai-data-centers-power" data-vars-content-id="3fd8d529-1583-48f7-8515-337e1dcf182d" data-vars-headline="Santee Cooper seeking buyers to restart V.C. Summer nuclear plant" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/pro/climate-deals/2024/09/11/ai-data-centers-power" target="_self">data centers</a>.

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Santee Cooper seeking buyers to restart V.C. Summer nuclear plant

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