Outage concludes at Braidwood Station

By: 
STAFF REPORT

Exelon’s Braidwood Station is back to full power this week.

Just after 6 a.m. on May 1, full power was restored to Unit 1 at the site, following a scheduled refueling outage that began on April 9. The unit was synchronized to the electrical power grid that morning, and reached full power by the afternoon of Thursday, May 3.

The scheduled outages create an economic boon to the city.

This most recent outage brought an additional 1,600 workers to the city for four weeks, benefiting local stores, gas stations, and restaurants.

Workers spent time on a host of maintenance activities, inspections and upgrades required to keep the unit maintained and running properly for the next 18-month operating cycle.

During this year's outage, workers installed two new main power transformers and performed thousands of inspections and maintenance activities to ensure reliability for another two-year operating cycle.

These state-of-the-art electrical components weigh approximately 500 tons and carry the plant's outbound electricity efficiently on high-voltage power lines.

In addition to technicians, on site workers included electricians, pipe fitters, welders, carpenters, laborers and other trades people who performed thousands of inspections, tests, maintenance activities, equipment upgrades and modifications that can only be done while the unit is offline, including replacing nearly one-third of the reactor’s fuel.