The Tennessee Valley Authority's Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant Unit 3 began a scheduled maintenance and refueling outage late last week.
The Unit 3 reactor at the plant, located in Athens, Alabama, has generated over 18 billion kilowatt hours of electricity over more than 650 days of continuous operation, so a break is warranted.
Throughout the scheduled outage, there will be an additional 1,500 contract and TVA employees to assist the regular staff with the approximately 15,500 work activities scheduled during the outage, including inspections of reactor components, installation of new fuel assemblies, modifications for improved safety margins, equipment upgrades and routine maintenance.
In addition, the Browns Ferry team will install upgraded equipment that will extend the power uprate at all three reactors, adding an additional 465 megawatts of generating capacity.
“Outages like this are our best opportunity to prepare Unit 3 to continue to generate reliable, low-cost electricity for the next 24 months so we can better serve the people of the Tennessee Valley,” site Vice President Steve Bono said. “Beyond loading new fuel, we also do the maintenance and upgrades on plant equipment that help ensure Unit 3 operates safely and dependably in the coming months.”
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