Cook Nuclear Plant Unit 2 begins refueling

BRIDGMAN — Indiana Michigan Power’s Cook Nuclear Plant Unit 2 began its 27th refueling outage on the morning of Saturday, March 23.

According to a news release, the power on Unit 2 was reduced March 20 to allow for equipment testing before the outage began. The unit will have operated for 12,023 hours during its last cycle at a capacity factor of 99.4 percent, generating 14,094,064 megawatt-hours of (net) electricity.

“We are very pleased with the Unit 2 capacity factor being greater than 99 percent over this last operating cycle,” said Shane Lies, AEP’s senior vice president and chief nuclear officer, in the release. “It is a testament to the effectiveness of our equipment-reliability initiatives. Moreover, we will complete many preventive and corrective maintenance activities during this outage that will help us to sustain this high level of performance. We would not be able to complete these activities without the assistance from all of the supplemental workers who have joined us at the plant and we are very grateful for their help.”

In addition to refueling the reactor and performing regular maintenance and testing work, the outage will include replacing a reactor coolant pump motor, performing periodic testing on the steam generators, and replacing the balance of plant battery.

An upgraded overspeed protection system will also be installed for the main turbine and main feed pump turbines.

More than 1,000 additional contracted workers will supplement regular plant staff leading up to and during the outage. About 12,000 maintenance, inspection and equipment modification job activities totaling 184,000 work-hours are scheduled for two daily 12-hour work shifts, the release stated.

Cook Unit 1 remains at 100 percent. Power to customers is not expected to be disrupted by the planned Unit 2 outage. AEP officials said it does not provide a return to service date for competitive reasons.

Cook plant is owned and operated by I&M, an AEP company based in Fort Wayne, Ind.

At full capacity, the 1,084-net MW Unit 1, and 1,194-net MW Unit 2 combined produce enough emission-free electricity for more than one and one half million average homes. I&M’s about 2,200 employees serve more than 607,000 customers, the release stated.