Indiana Michigan Power’s Cook Nuclear Plant Unit 2 returned to service Sunday, Dec. 5 following a refueling outage that began Oct. 6. The return to service from the outage was delayed by four weeks for repairs to the baffle plates in the reactor vessel, which extended the outage to 61 days.
Routine inspections following removal of the fuel assemblies identified damaged bolts from the reactor vessel’s baffle plates. The baffle plates form the structure that shapes the reactor core. Similar bolt failures have occurred previously in the industry and specialized repair tools and existing safety analyses were used to resolve the issue.
More than 16,000 work activities totaling 365,000 work hours were completed by the 1,100 person plant staff and more than 850 contracted workers. The outage was completed with no recordable or lost-time injuries.
“We appreciate the dedication and commitment of our employees and our families and want to thank them and the many local and industry workers who supplemented our work force during the outage,” said Larry Weber, senior vice president and chief nuclear officer. “We had the right daily focus on safety and quality, and we completed the right work to support reliable operation of the unit.”
The outage also included installation of new tube bundles in the two moisture separator reheaters. Those components reheat the exhaust steam from the high pressure turbine and remove moisture before the steam passes through the three low pressure turbines. The $37 million dollar project should increase electrical output by 10 MW and increase longevity of the low-pressure turbines.
The combined 1,030 net megawatt (MW) Unit 1 and 1,077 net MW Unit 2 produce enough electricity for more than 1.5 million average homes.
Bill Downey
Communications Representative
269.466.2955
wrdowney@aep.com