Duke finishes refueling Brunswick Nuclear Plant reactor
The process took 27 days, beating the old mark by 12 hours
SOUTHPORT — Duke Energy has finished refueling one of the two reactors at its Brunswick Nuclear Plant — and in record time.
Unit One’s return to service shortly before midnight on March 24 marked completion of the shortest outage in the plant’s four-decade history, Duke Energy spokeswoman Karen Williams said.
By the following Wednesday morning the reactor was operating at 95 percent capacity, according to the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
The outage’s 27-day length beat the previous record, set by Unit One in 2000, by 12 hours, Williams said.
In addition to standard maintenance and refueling, this year’s outage included completion of post-Fukushima instrument modifications and upgrades to the second of four emergency diesel generators.
All but one of Duke’s 11 reactors have now completed modifications ordered by NRC in 2012 in the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011.
Fukushima is a Japanese town that was home to a nuclear plant with four reactors operated by the Tokyo Electric Power Company.
