Early Saturday morning, operators at the D.C. Cook Nuclear Plant powered down Unit 2 to begin its scheduled fall refueling and maintenance outage.
Every 18 months, each of Cook’s two generating units undergoes this process, which not only keeps the plant running safely and efficiently but also provides a major economic lift to the region. The timing is especially helpful in the “shoulder seasons” of spring and fall, when tourism traffic slows and local hotels, restaurants, and shops welcome the influx of visiting workers.
This fall, more than 1,200 specialized contractors have joined Cook’s regular staff for the outage, which will involve thousands of maintenance and upgrade tasks around the clock. The work is expected to total nearly 200,000 labor hours, spread across 12-hour shifts, seven days a week.
While Unit 2 is offline, Unit 1 continues to operate at full power, and customers will not notice any disruption in service. When both units are online, Cook produces enough carbon-free electricity to power more than 1.5 million average homes.
The current outage includes a variety of equipment upgrades and inspections, ensuring the 50-year-old plant remains reliable well into the future.
Owned and operated by Indiana Michigan Power, a subsidiary of American Electric Power, Cook remains one of the area’s largest employers and economic drivers — with these cyclical refueling outages serving as an added boost to Southwest Michigan’s economy.
