RICHLAND, Wash. – Columbia Generating Station, the Northwest’s only operating nuclear power plant, is scheduled to begin a refueling outage at 12:01 a.m. Saturday morning. This is the 17th refueling outage at the plant, and the second refueling since the station changed to a two-year operating cycle following the R-15 outage in 2001.
The outage is scheduled for 35 days. However, refueling outages involve extensive maintenance work on the power plant, sometimes requiring schedule changes. Crews will work to keep the outage as short as possible, but safety remains the first priority to ensure a safe, reliable plant for the coming two year cycle.
Approximately one-third of the 764 fuel assemblies in the reactor core will be replaced during the outage. The outgoing assemblies have been depleted of their useful energy and will be stored in plant’s spent fuel pool.
Other major work slated for the outage includes removal and inspection of the high-pressure turbine rotor, overhaul of three of eight main steam isolation valves, and replacing 29 of 185 control rod drive mechanisms.
Approximately 1,250 temporary workers from across the nation are at Columbia to assist with the refueling outage.
olumbia Generating Station is a boiling water reactor. It began operation in December 1984. Today it generates more than 10 percent of the power handled by the Bonneville Power Administration, enough electricity to serve a city the size of Seattle.