The William States Lee III Nuclear Station is a planned two-unit nuclear power plant. Duke Energy

Duke Energy

Duke Energy , headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, is an energy company with assets in the United States, Canada and Latin America.-Overview:...

 filed the Combined Construction and Operating License

Combined Construction and Operating License

The Combined Construction and Operating License replaced the previous Draft Regulatory Guide 1145 as the licensing process for new nuclear power plants in the United States...

 (COL) application for the plant on December 13, 2007 to the NRC

Nuclear Regulatory Commission

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is an independent agency of the United States government that was established by the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 from the United States Atomic Energy Commission, and was first opened January 19, 1975...

. With this application, Duke Energy was the fourth company to apply for a license under the new procedure, and the license will be modeled after the Bellefonte NPP

Bellefonte Nuclear Generating Station

The Bellefonte Nuclear Generating Station is a partially completed nuclear power plant located in Hollywood, Alabama. A total of four reactors have been proposed over a period of 40 years, and billions of dollars have been spent, but no electricity has yet been produced. The site has sat idle for...

 application that was filed by NuStart Energy two months prior, which is possible because both plants will use the AP1000 standard design.
Duke expects to receive the COL for Lee in 2012. The first unit could come on line about 2016-2018.

The plant is named for William States Lee III

William States Lee III

William States Lee III, popularly known as Bill Lee, was born in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1929. He attended Woodberry Forest School and was a Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Princeton University in Civil Engineering. After serving in the U.S. Navy SeaBees, Lee joined Duke Power’s...

 (1929–1996), former chief executive officer

Chief executive officer

A chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...

 (CEO) of Duke Energy (1982–94).
This site will be adjacent to the Cherokee Nuclear Power Plant

Cherokee Nuclear Power Plant

The Cherokee Nuclear Power Plant is an uncompleted energy project outside of Gaffney, South Carolina, United States. In the early 1970s, Duke Power started construction on a three-reactor nuclear power plant at the site. However, the project stalled due to economic problems by the early 1980s,...

 site which was never completed and abandoned in the early 1980s, and used by James Cameron

James Cameron

James Francis Cameron is a Canadian-American film director, film producer, screenwriter, editor, environmentalist and inventor...

 as a film set for the 1989 movie The Abyss

The Abyss

The Abyss is a 1989 science fiction film written and directed by James Cameron. It stars Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and Michael Biehn. The original musical score was composed by Alan Silvestri...

.

Costs and economics

In December 2007, Duke Power announced that it would spend $160 million in 2008 on the plant and that total costs could range 5–6 billion dollars.
In November 2008, Duke estimated the overnight cost of the plant at $11 billion.

Reactor data

The William States Lee III Nuclear Generating Station will consist of two reactors.

Reactor unit	Reactor type	Capacity		Construction started	Electricity grid connection	Commercial operation	Shutdown
		Net	Gross
William States Lee III -1 (planned)	AP1000	1117 MW	MW
William States Lee III -2 (planned)	AP1000	1117 MW	MW