BERWICK, Pa., April 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Operators at PPL's Susquehanna nuclear power plant in Luzerne County, Pa., safely shut down the Unit 2 reactor early Saturday (4/29) for a planned outage to repair a water leak.
"The leak is minor -- significantly less than the amount that would require us to shut down for repairs according to the plant's operating procedures -- and it does not affect our ability to operate safely," said Robert A. Saccone, vice president of Nuclear Operations for PPL Susquehanna.
"We made the proactive decision to find and fix the leak now, so that we don't run the risk of having to shut down the unit during the summer if the leak gets worse. In the summer months, the regional power grid, consumers and PPL count on Susquehanna to provide reliable power as electricity use increases," Saccone added.
PPL has planned additional maintenance in other areas of the plant during this short outage. The additional work will help maintain the reliability of Unit 2, which was in service for 322 consecutive days before this shutdown.
Susquehanna Unit 1 is operating at full power.
The 2,360-megawatt Susquehanna plant has two boiling water reactors. The plant, located about seven miles north of Berwick, Pa., 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/.
