The Tennessee Valley Authority’s Sequoyah Nuclear Plant Unit 1 is once again producing reliable, carbon-free energy after safely completing a scheduled refueling and maintenance outage this week, said officials. Plant operators are returning Unit 1 to its full capacity, generating enough power for 650,000 homes.
“The entire Sequoyah team, supported by our union and contract partners, safely completed over 11,700 work activities during the outage,” said Tom Marshall, Sequoyah site vice president. “The work we performed together in this outage puts Unit 1 in the best position to continue to operate safely and reliably over the next 18-month cycle. Each of our team members takes great pride in the work they do to ensure the plant continues to provide safe, reliable, low-cost, carbon-free electricity to the people and businesses of the Tennessee Valley.”
In addition to replacing 85 of the unit’s 193 fuel assemblies, detailed inspections of various systems were conducted to confirm all components are fully able to perform their safety functions. Other major maintenance activities included replacing or refurbishing a number of motors, valves and other plant components, as well as several modifications for improving safety.
Keeping with safe work practices and COVID-19 conditions, Sequoyah continues to take multiple and significant steps to help protect the health and well-being of employees and supplemental workers, including health screenings with the use of thermal scanning devices at plant entrance points, face-mask requirements and social distancing, said officials.
This spring, TVA has safely completed scheduled refueling outages at Browns Ferry Unit 2 and Sequoyah Unit 1. Watts Bar Unit 1 is scheduled to begin its next refueling outage this fall.
Sequoyah Unit 1 is one of seven operational TVA nuclear reactors across the Valley. TVA’s nuclear fleet is the third largest in the nation, safely and reliably providing more than 40 percent of all electricity used by nearly 10 million people in the Tennessee Valley.