Pilgrim nuclear power station manually taken offline Thursday
Operation shut down in the morning, remains offline Friday
Article | News | | By Maggie Kulbokas
Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth was manually taken offline Thursday morning at 7:55 a.m. according to a statement from the plant's parent company Entergy.
Operators made the decision to go offline following an electrical fault in the plant's feedwater pumps. Feedwater pumps supply water to the reactor, according to Entergy spokesperson Carol Wightman.
When the plant was taken offline, the back-up pumps reportedly kicked in and the plant remains in shutdown mode.
The cause of the electrical breaker fault is being investigated. Operators will restart the plant once the cause of the fault is discovered and any necessary repairs are made, according to Wightman.
More information about the Entergy plant is available on the NRC site here.
Pilgrim Plant still offline
By CHRISTINE LEGERE
clegere@capecodonline.com
August 24, 2013
PLYMOUTH — Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station remained offline Friday after an emergency manual shutdown Thursday morning. A tripped breaker on Thursday cut off power to pumps supplying water to aid in the cooling of the reactor, spurring the shutdown.
Carol Wightman, spokeswoman for Entergy, the plant's owner-operator, said Friday that the plant continues to cool down, a process that takes between 24 and 48 hours.
"There are certain jobs they only can do when the plant's cooled down," Wightman said. Asked whether investigators have determined what caused the problem Thursday, Wightman said they are "continuing to investigate."
According to Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the electrical system that supports the coolant system failed.
"They lost one pump, then the second, and the third was going, so they inserted all control rods," Sheehan said. The rods stop the reactor's function.
Federal regulators are looking at a couple of deviations from standard shutdown protocol that appeared to become necessary during the process of taking Pilgrim offline.
The first was the need to use safety relief valves to control the pressure, Sheehan said. The second was a drop in the water level in the reactor, which was addressed by using a high-pressure coolant injection system that quickly restored proper water level.
Sheehan said federal officials will review the closure to determine whether it will place Pilgrim into a category that requires closer oversight by the NRC.
Of the 100 plants in the U.S., 23 fall into that category, Sheehan said.
Although neither the NRC nor Entergy would say when the plant would be powered back up, both said all systems in the plant would be checked before start-up.
There were three unplanned shutdowns at Pilgrim in January and February.
On Jan. 10, the plant was shut down after recirculation pumps were tripped while testing was being done on the plant's low-pressure coolant injection system.
On Jan. 21, the plant was taken offline after operators manually shut it down to repair a valve leak.
The plant also lost off-site power during the height of the blizzard Feb. 8 and was automatically shut down.
No comments:
Post a Comment