The nuclear power station also includes the decommissioned experimental Carolinas-Virginia Tube Reactor (CVTR) unit, just outside the site of the old town of Parr, SC.

The remaining one-third is owned by the South Carolina Public Service Authority (Santee Cooper).

[8] On March 27, 2008, South Carolina Electric & Gas applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for a Combined Construction and Operating License (COL) to build two 1,100 MW AP1000 pressurized water reactors at the site.

[9] On May 27, 2008, SCE&G and Santee Cooper announced an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract had been reached with Westinghouse.

The operators filed an application to increase customers bills by $1.2 billion (2.5%) during the construction period to partially finance capital costs.

As with the license approval for the Vogtle plant, NRC chairman Gregory Jaczko cast the lone dissenting vote, saying "I continue to believe that we should require that all Fukushima-related safety enhancements are implemented before these new reactors begin operating".

[18] In March 2017, Westinghouse Electric Company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy because of $9 billion of losses from its two U.S. nuclear construction projects.

SCANA had determined that completing just Unit 2 and abandoning Unit 3 could be feasible and was leaning toward that option internally, however the project died when minority partner Santee Cooper's board voted to cease all construction and SCANA could not find another partner to take their place.

[22] In September 2024, a report from the South Carolina Governor's Nuclear Advisory Council stated "No obvious conditions preclude undertaking completion".

[26] The 2010 U.S. population within 10 miles (16 km) of Summer was 17,599, an increase of 26.2 percent in a decade, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data for msnbc.com.