First Energy announces refueling, maintenance outage at Perry nuclear plant

US-based First Energy has announced temporary shut down of its Perry nuclear plant, located in Perry, Ohio, to carry out refueling and maintenance work.

During the temporary shutdown of the 1,268MW unit, the company will replace 120 of the 748 fuel assemblies, perform safety inspections on the unit’s reactor vessel, turbine and electrical generator.

In addition, preventative maintenance work will be performed on major components to continue safe and reliable operations, including testing over 160 valves, replacing several control rod blades and inspecting and cleaning cooling tower piping.

Perry nuclear plant’s three low pressure turbines will be replaced with a new 175t turbine rotors to improve the efficiency and reliability of the plant.

The Perry unit has been operating safely and reliably since the completion of its last refueling in spring 2011 and producing over 17.9 million megawatt hours of carbon-free electricity.

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