Commitments

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2022

Commitments and Contingencies Disclosure [Abstract]

Commitments

11. Commitments:

We have entered into long-term commitments to meet fuel, transportation, maintenance and asset retirement requirements.

To supply a portion of the fuel requirements to our co-owned generating units, Georgia Power, on our behalf for coal and Southern Nuclear on our behalf for nuclear fuel, have entered into various long-term commitments for the procurement of coal and nuclear fuel. The contracts in most cases contain provision for price escalations, minimum and maximum purchase levels and other financial commitments. The value of the coal commitments is based on maximum coal prices and minimum volumes as provided in the contracts and does not include taxes, transportation, government impositions or railcar costs.

We have entered into long-term agreements with various counterparties to provide firm natural gas transportation to our natural gas-fired facilities. The value of these agreements is based on fixed rates as provided in the contracts and does not include variable costs.

We have also entered into long-term maintenance agreements for certain of our natural gas-fired facilities. In most cases, these agreements include provisions for price escalation and performance bonuses and, if applicable, are included in the values; timing of expenditures is based on current operational assumptions. Certain agreements contain significant cancellation for convenience penalties and, therefore, amounts in the table below include total estimated expenditures over the life of the agreement. If these agreements were terminated by us in 2023 for convenience, our cancellation obligation would be approximately $96,796,000.

We have asset retirement obligations which are legal obligations to retire long-lived assets. These obligations are primarily for the decommissioning of our nuclear units and coal ash ponds. Expenditures are based on estimates determined through decommissioning studies and include provisions for price escalation and other factors. See Note 1h for information regarding our asset retirement obligations.

We have a small portfolio of leases with the most significant being a finance lease for our 60% undivided interest in Scherer Unit No. 2. In addition, we have other operating leases including railcar leases for the transportation of coal at our coal-fired plants and various other leases of minimal value. For information regarding these leases, see Note 6.

As of December 31, 2022, our estimated commitments are as follows:

									Asset
					Gas		Maintenance		Retirement		Finance and
	Coal		Nuclear Fuel		Transportation		Agreements		Obligations		Operating Leases
	(dollars in thousands)
2023	$	26,891	$	78,780	$	63,850	$	29,720	$	16,709	$	16,273
2024		26,070		39,690		62,818		57,749		52,003		15,799
2025		10,426		32,280		62,775		43,025		46,128		15,590
2026		—		28,980		68,872		15,736		49,445		15,299
2027		—		26,580		67,188		3,237		67,384		15,021
Thereafter		—		67,170		824,627		316,160		3,416,582		11,551