Hotels, motels, B-and-B’s and beyond in the area will get a fall boost from word this morning that more than 1,150 contract workers are in town or on the way for Indiana Michigan Power’ Company’s planned refueling outage at the Cook Nuclear Plant near Bridgman beginning this week.
Officials from the utility tell us that the Cook Nuclear Plant’s Unit 2 will begin its 24th refueling outage tomorrow evening, Tuesday, October 1st, at 10 pm. A gradual power reduction for the unit began September 9th at 11:59 pm, and has continued in order to conserve remaining fuel life until the unit is taken offline to begin the outage. A return to service date is not provided for competitive reasons.
In addition to refueling the reactor and performing regular maintenance and testing activities, other significant project work will take place during the outage. Projects include modifications to the unit’s solid state protection system, in-service inspections of the reactor vessel, replacement of the reactor vessel hold down spring, heater drain pump mechanical seal replacements, fuse upgrades on the control room instrumentation distribution system, and replacement of the west motor driven auxiliary feed pump room cooling system.
Joel Gebbie, Senior Vice President & Chief Nuclear Officer for AEP says, “Some of the work included in this outage will help us complete the Life Cycle Management Project we have been working on for the last several years,” adding, “Our Indiana Michigan Power customers depend on a reliable, safe supply of electricity to power their lives. The Cook Plant is now well prepared to provide that much-needed electricity for the next 20 years and beyond.”
About 1,150 contracted workers will supplement the regular 1,100-person plant staff leading up to and during the outage. More than 9,500 maintenance, inspection and equipment modification job activities totaling 230,000 work-hours are scheduled for two daily 12-hour work shifts.
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.
