Contrary to the traditional Christmas story, there’ll likely be a little more “room at the inn” throughout Michigan’s Great Southwest this holiday season, as well as at your neighborhood diner and the like. After a 76-day run, the team at American Electric Power announced this morning that the refueling outage for the Cook Nuclear Plant’s Unit 1 is complete.
Indiana Michigan Power’s Cook Plant refueling downtime ended at 2:43am this morning, Tuesday, November 28th, and the unit is now back in service and connected to the transmission grid. The outage lasted just over two and a half months.
In addition to refueling the reactor and performing regular maintenance and testing work, the outage was extended due to the planned inspection and replacement of baffle bolts, which support internal components of the reactor vessel.
Joel Gebbie is Senior Vice President & Chief Nuclear Officer for the Cook Plant. He says, “The Cook team, including local and regional craft workers, performed safely and efficiently during this longer than usual outage.” Gebbie adds, “We also appreciate the support of our families and the community as we work to secure the long-term viability and reliability of our plant.”
About 1,500 contracted workers supplemented the regular 1,200-person plant staff during the outage, creating a brief boom for the lodging and hospitality industries as workers from outside of the area worked here for those 76 days requiring temporary lodging and many a restaurant meal.
Prior to the refueling outage, the unit operated for 504 consecutive days at a capacity factor of 101.3-percent, generating 12,594,033 megawatt-hours of electricity. All three results rival the unit’s record setting run that ended in September, 2014. It is possible to run greater than 100-percent capacity by gaining efficiencies through cooler than average lake water temperatures.
At full capacity, the 1,084-net MegaWatt Unit 1 and 1,194-net MegaWatt Unit 2 combined actually produce enough electricity for more than one and one half million average homes.
Indiana Michigan Power is a wholly owned subsidiary of American Electric Power.
