LaSalle County nuclear plant undergoes refueling outage

Plant personnel and supplemental employees worked on a Unit 2 refueling outage early Monday at the LaSalle County Generating Station near Marseilles, Illinois, station officials said.

“LaSalle Station is proud to be one of six nuclear power plants in Illinois that provide half of the state’s energy,” Site Vice President Pete Karaba said. “Supplemental employees come back to our station year after year to work our outages and help us contribute to safe, carbon-free electricity generation.”

At full power, the Exelon Generation station, approximately 75 miles southwest of Chicago, produces more than 2,200 megawatts of carbon-free electricity, roughly enough to power 2.3 million American homes.

In 2014, LaSalle Station both directly and indirectly pushed close to $1 billion into the Illinois economy.

“When 1,400 supplemental workers come to Exelon’s LaSalle Station for the refuel outage, it means additional business for our community,” Executive Director of the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce Boyd Palmer said. “These additional workers frequent local restaurants, retail stores and stay at our area hotels. It is a win-win for both parties and definitely a boost to the area’s local economy.”

Exelon Generation operates three nuclear power plants, 12 fossil power plants, two landfill gas plants and one pumped storage hydroelectric power plant in the state.