ATHENS – The Tennessee Valley Authority’s Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant Unit 2 resumed the safe and reliable generation of carbon-free electricity at 10:14 p.m. CDT on April 22, following the completion of a scheduled maintenance and refueling outage.
This outage included the largest scope of turbine deck work since original construction, with large-scale replacements of major components on all three of Unit 2’s low-pressure turbines, including new rotors, inner casings, steam piping and bellows and turbine supervisory instruments. This work allows the unit to generate an additional 7 megawatts of electricity, enough to power more than 4,000 additional homes.
“This investment by TVA helps ensure Browns Ferry continues to provide safe, reliable, clean energy to our local power companies as we enter the region’s summer peak season and beyond,” said Browns Ferry Site Vice President Matt Rasmussen. “The work completed during this outage demonstrates our team’s high level of commitment to our mission of service and to the people living in the communities we serve.”
More than 18,000 work activities were completed, including major repairs to reactor components and the installation of 320 new fuel assemblies along with upgrades, modifications, repairs and testing of other plant equipment and routine maintenance of key safety systems.
The refueling team safely loaded four first-of-their-kind, 3D-printed fuel assembly brackets in the Unit 2 reactor. The brackets were manufactured at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in a joint project with TVA and Framatome as part of the lab’s Transformational Challenge Reactor program. The brackets will remain in the reactor for six years with inspections planned during outages and after use.
Browns Ferry Unit 2 is one of seven operational TVA nuclear reactors across the Valley. TVA’s nuclear fleet is the third largest in the nation, safely and reliably providing about 40 percent of all electricity used by nearly 10 million people in the Tennessee Valley.
Media Release/Malinda Hunter/TVA Public Relations
