GE Hitachi to provide outage services for Alabama nuclear plant

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has contracted with GE Hitachi (GEH) to supply outage services at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant near near Decatur, Alabama, GE said late last week.

“We look forward to providing engineering and technical-services expertise, advanced tooling and skilled, experienced outage personnel to help TVA meet its goals for the safe and reliable operation of the Browns Ferry reactors,” Lance Hall, executive vice president of Nuclear Fuels and Services for GEH, said.

Under the contract, GEH will carry out inspection and maintenance services for the three nuclear units at the Browns Ferry facility. This contract is valued at approximately $70 million and will run up until 2020, for a total of nine total outages, three per unit.

Services in this contract include  control-rod drive-mechanism exchange services, refueling and under-vessel activities.

The Browns Ferry facility, when operating at full capacity, is capable of producing approximately 3,300 megawatts of electricity through its three units. GEH said this is approximately 10 percent of TVA’s operating capacity and is enough to serve approximately 2 million typical residences.

GEH is an international collaboration between GE and Hitachi, focusing on services within the nuclear power generation industry. The partnership was formed in 2007.