The Tennessee Valley Authority’s Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant Unit 1 began a scheduled refueling and maintenance outage late Friday.
“The outage is a routine and carefully planned activity so fuel can be replaced and maintenance can be safely performed on key equipment and systems,” said Keith Polson, Browns Ferry Plant site vice president. “Browns Ferry Units 2 and 3 will both continue to safely operate during the outage.”
An additional 850 TVA and contract employees will supplement the site’s regular staff of almost 1,400 employees during the outage. The project will involve more than 163,000 work-hours until the outage is completed.
“Our employees are committed to improving safety margins and equipment reliability,” said Mr. Polson. “These improvement efforts resulted in Unit 1 operating continuously for 254 days during its most recent fuel cycle. We also saw a site milestone achieved in December 2013 with all three units running 223 consecutive days.”
At full capacity, Browns Ferry’s three units generate a combined 3,300 megawatts of electricity, which is 10 percent of TVA’s total generation capacity and enough electricity to power 2 million homes. TVA also operates two units at Sequoyah Nuclear Plant in Soddy Daisy, and one unit at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant near Spring City, Tn., where a second unit is scheduled for completion in late 2015.