Both reactors shut down at Watts Bar Nuclear Plant

SPRING CITY -- Both reactors at TVA's newest nuclear power plant are shut down after plant operators idled one unit for routine refueling Saturday and shut down the other unit Monday after detecting problems in the pumps on the non-nuclear part of the plant.

The shutdown of the two 1,150-megawatt reactors has cut enough power to supply 1.3 million homes in the Tennessee Valley.

TVA still has plenty of power capacity from its other power plants, especially with this week's mild springtime temperatures. But the shutdown costs TVA more than $1 million a day to replace the lost generation.

The shutdown of the Unit 1 reactor for refueling has brought an extra 800 temporary contract workers and TVA employees to the plant near Spring City, Tenn., for the next month to perform maintenance work and refuel the Unit 1 reactor. Nuclear plants are typically refueled about every 18 months and plant operators use such outages to replace parts, inspect equipment and perform other maintenance tasks that can't be done when the unit is operating.

Read more: http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/business/aroundregion/story/2017/mar/20/both-units-shut-down-watts-bar-nuclear-plant/418612/