An emergency situation on the regional power grid for American Electric Power has forced Cook Plant operators to postpone the start of their Unit 2 refueling outage by 24 hours.
Cook Plant spokesman Bill Downey says that around 5:45pm Tuesday evening, Indiana Michigan Power Company’s nuclear team received a call from AEP System Operators advising that PJM, the regional transmission organization that operates the power grid for American Electric Power’s northernmost power generating system, that a Maximum Generation Emergency had been issued.
The Emergency Declaration actually had nothing to do with the Cook Plant, it stems from the fact that guidelines for a Maximum Generation Emergency ask that all generating units within the system that are online remain online in order to maintain a stable power supply to the grid.
Downey says, “To comply with the request, Cook and AEP management made the decision to implement a 24-hour delay for refueling the Cook Unit 2 reactor from its original start time of 10:00 pm, Tuesday, October 1st. The outage will now begin at 10:00 pm tonight, Wednesday, October 2nd.”
At full capacity, Cook Plant’s 1,084-net MW Unit 1 and 1,194-net MW Unit 2 combined produce enough electricity for more than one and one half million average homes. Indiana Michigan Power is a wholly owned subsidiary of American Electric Power.
