BERWICK, Pa., March 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Operators at the PPL Susquehanna nuclear power plant in Luzerne County, Pa., safely shut down the Unit 1 reactor Saturday morning (3/4) to start a scheduled refueling and maintenance outage.
Since its last refueling outage in 2004, Susquehanna Unit 1 has generated more than 17.7 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity. That is enough electricity to supply nearly 900,000 average homes over the two-year period.
"Refueling outages are critically important to the safe and reliable operation of the power plant," said Robert A. Saccone, vice president of Nuclear Operations for PPL Susquehanna. "We have been planning for this outage for nearly a year - to identify, schedule and prepare for the work we will be doing."
Workers will replace about 40 percent of the nuclear fuel assemblies in the Unit 1 reactor and complete thousands of inspections, tests and maintenance jobs that they are able to do while the reactor is shut down.
A major part of this outage will be a refurbishing of the Unit 1 generator, a non-nuclear component of the power plant that produces electrical energy from the mechanical energy of turbine blades spun by steam produced in the reactor.
"Improvements to the generator are an investment that will enhance Susquehanna Unit 1 to reliably produce electricity for years to come," Saccone said.
This is the 14th refueling and maintenance outage on Unit 1, which began generating electricity in 1983. Before the start of the outage, Unit 1 had generated electricity for 110 consecutive days.
The Susquehanna plant, located in Luzerne County about seven miles north of Berwick, is owned jointly by PPL Susquehanna LLC and Allegheny Electric Cooperative Inc. and is operated by PPL Susquehanna.
PPL Susquehanna is one of PPL Corporation's generating facilities. Headquartered in Allentown, Pa., PPL Corporation controls about 12,000 megawatts of generating capacity in the United States, sells energy in key U.S. markets and delivers electricity to nearly 5 million customers in Pennsylvania, the United Kingdom and Latin America. More information is available at http://www.pplweb.com/.
