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Feb. 28, 2002 -- FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co. (FENOC) announced that Beaver Valley Power Station Unit 2 returned to service Wednesday evening following a scheduled refueling that began on February 4, 2002. The Unit completed this refueling in 23 days, surpassing its prior record by nine days.
This refueling places the Unit among the industry's top 25 percent for outage duration performance.
At 8 a.m. Wednesday, the unit was operating at approximately 30 percent power. Power levels will vary over the next several days as part of routine testing until 100 percent operating power is achieved.
"Beaver Valley employees keep making tremendous strides in performance," said Lew Myers, FENOC Senior Vice President at Beaver Valley. "Not only have they achieved another excellent record, but they did it safely. This is the fourth, straight refueling that Beaver Valley employees performed without an industry accident. We are extremely proud of this accomplishment."
Major work included replacing 64 of the 157 fuel assemblies in the reactor and installing a new motor in the reactor's cooling system that will further reduce the length of future outages. In addition, Beaver Valley employees, assisted by other FENOC personnel and approximately 900 craftsmen mainly from Western Pennsylvania, completed more than 1,000 other activities related to routine maintenance, testing and equipment enhancements.
Nucleonics Week, a nuclear power trade publication, recently placed Beaver Valley Unit 2 among the nation's top nuclear plants for reliability. The Unit ranked 17th out of 103 U.S. nuclear plants and 32nd out of 438 nuclear plants in the world. During 2001, Unit 2 operated 363 out of 365 days and generated more than 7.1 million megawatt-hours of electricity.
The Beaver Valley, Davis-Besse and Perry plants are owned by FirstEnergy Corp., Akron, Ohio, and operated by its subsidiary FENOC. FirstEnergy is a registered public utility holding company. Its various subsidiaries produce more than $12 billion in annual revenues and sell 124 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity.
Other FirstEnergy Energy affiliates are involved in the exploration and production of oil and natural gas, marketing of natural gas, and energy-related services. FirstEnergy's electric utility operating companies -- Ohio Edison, The Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company and Toledo Edison in Ohio; Metropolitan Edison, Pennsylvania Electric and Pennsylvania Power in Pennsylvania; and Jersey Central Power & Light -- comprise the nation's fourth largest investor-owned electric system, based on serving 4.3 million customers within a 36,100-square-mile area that stretches from the Ohio-Indiana border to the New Jersey shore.
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