Indiana Michigan Power’s Cook Nuclear Plant Unit 2 completed its spring 2024 refueling outage, which began March 23, connecting to the transmission grid at 7:52 P.M., Friday, May 3. Cook’s Unit 1 remained safely at full power for the duration of the 41-day Unit 2 refueling outage.
In addition to refueling the reactor and performing regular maintenance and testing work, the outage also included replacing a reactor coolant pump (RCP) motor, performing periodic testing on the steam generators, and replacing the balance of plant (BOP) battery. An upgraded overspeed protection system was also installed for the main turbine and main feed pump turbines.
Over 1,000 additional contracted workers supplemented regular plant staff leading up to and during the outage. Approximately 12,000 maintenance, inspection and equipment modification job activities totaling 184,000 work-hours were completed over two daily 12-hour work shifts.
“This was a very successful refueling outage,” said Luke Ellis, Cook’s Plant Manager. “We made the investments required to meet our commitment to provide safe and reliable generation of clean electricity to the surrounding community. I am proud of the teamwork and professionalism shown by our employees, contractors and vendor partners who made this outage a success.”
Cook Nuclear Plant is owned and operated by Indiana Michigan Power, an AEP company. 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.
Indiana Michigan Power (I&M) is headquartered in Fort Wayne, and its approximately 2,000 employees serve more than 600,000 customers. More than 85% of its energy delivered in 2023 was emission-free, according to a statement from the company.
