The Vermont Yankee nuclear plant began its 28th refueling outage as operators disconnected the plant from the New England electrical grid on Saturday night. In the now-completed operating cycle, the plant produced electricity around the clock for 532 days since returning to service from its last refueling outage in 2008, safely and reliably providing electricity to New England consumers.
The 532 total days of operation is the plant s second longest run in its history; the plant achieved 547 days of continuous operation in 2007. The total generation during this operating cycle included an annual productivity record of 5,360,608 megawatt hours, in 2009.
Preparations for this outage have been underway for more than a year and a full schedule of maintenance overhauls, tests and inspections are lined up. The technical plant staff is being augmented by Entergy employees from other Entergy plants and more than 800 specialized contractors. Union craftworkers that support the Vermont Yankee maintenance outages include International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 300, Ironworkers Local 7 from Burlington, Vermont and Teamsters Local 597 from Barre, Vermont.
Other union craftworkers in Vernon for the outage include insulators, boilermakers, carpenters, laborers, millwrights, operating engineers, painters and pipefitters. The influx of these temporary workers from the local area and the region represents a major economic benefit for Vermont. Their local purchases of goods and services during the outage are expected to amount to more than $2 million in economic benefit. Major work planned for this outage includes refueling operations, control rod drive replacements, steam dryer inspections, torus cleaning, condenser tube sleeving, power cable replacements and tie-ins with the new Vernon substation. As part of Entergy s six-point plan to become a leader in tritium leak prevention, the steam trap drainlines in the advanced off gas system that were found to be the source of tritium leakage will be rerouted during this outage.
We ll perform these outage tasks with safety as the highest priority. Our commitment to safety is the key to reliable operation and a successful outage, said Michael Colomb, Entergy Vermont Yankee site vice president.
Source: Vermont Yankee. 4.25.2010
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