Clinton Power Station Begins Regularly Scheduled Refuel Outage

Oct 8, 2013 7:41 AM

ShortlybeforemidnightMonday morning, operators at the Clinton Power Station removed the unit for the station's regularly scheduled refueling outage.

With the unit offline, the station will have routine maintenance performed and thousands of inspections on a variety of plant components and systems. Communications Manager for the Clinton Power Station, Bill Harris explains there will be many areas of the plant that are normally unaccessible that will be accessed during this time.

The outage replaces about one-third of the reactor's fuel and detailed inspections of one of the station's low pressure and high pressure turbines. Harris compares the outage to driving on a west coast trip without ever stopping to refuel.

Harris explains the nearly 2-thousand workers from all over the country keep the outage time to a minimum.

The refuel outage used to be on a 24 month cycle, however, recently, Exelon has adjusted that to an every year cycle starting in 2015. The some 19-hundred workers will spend approximately $26.5-million in contractor and vendor support for the outage with more than $2-million of that being spent locally.

The Clinton power Station is located around six miles east of Clinton and produces over 1-thousand megawatts, enough electricity for about one million homes.