Beaver Valley nuclear plant shuts down for scheduled maintenance

Refueling and maintenance outage at Beaver Valley Power Station Unit 1
Refueling and maintenance outage at Beaver Valley Power Station Unit 1 | Courtesy of nrc.gov

FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC), a branch of FirstEnergy Corp., shut down the Beaver Valley Power Station Unit 1 in Shippingport, Pennsylvania, for routine maintenance and refueling Saturday.

Over 1,000 temporary contractor workers and FirstEnergy and FENOC employees were added to the regular work schedule at the plant during the unit outage, during which time 61 of the 157 fuel assemblies were replaced. Several safety inspections were also conducted during this scheduled, preventive maintenance session to guarantee reliable and safe operations at the power plant.

The results of the maintenance and safety tests show that the 939-megawatt Beaver Valley Unit 1 is both safe and reliable. Since the last refueling in November 2013, this unit has generated over 11 million megawatt hours of electricity.

Further maintenance will be finished on the station’s three steam generators to verify the safety and efficiency of various plant parts including valves, the cooling tower and pumps.

FirstEnergy Corp. is based in Akron, Ohio. The diversified energy company has a FENOC subsidiary and also runs the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station in Oak Harbor, Ohio.