A faulty seal in the condenser of the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant has kept the Tennessee Valley Authority plant offline for the past week, but TVA spokesman Jim Hopson said Friday the utility hopes to have the problem fixed and the reactor back online by next week.
The Unit 1 reactor at Watts Bar shut down last Saturday when plant workers detected problems from the loss of a vacuum seal in the condenser, which helps convert steam from the non-nuclear part of the plant back into water to reuse for power generation.
"We did find that we had a seal problem inside the condenser in Unit 1 and we're replacing that seal and inspecting the other seals in the condenser to make sure that we don't have a similar problem somewhere else," Hopson said. "We hope to be able to have the unit back up and running sometime next week."
The unit was shut down just after the coldest days of the winter pushed TVA's power demand to a record high for any single day in February. Although temperatures have remained below normal this week, the loss of the Watts Bar reactor has not affected TVA's ability to meet its power demand, which has been lower this week than last, Hopson said.
"We have had more snow and ice this year, but the temperatures that drive our peak demand have not been as low as they were last week," he said.
TVA is also building a second reactor at Watts Bar near Spring City, Tenn. That unit is expected to be completed and start generating power by the end of this year.
TVA plans to begin hot functional testing of the equipment in the Unit 2 reactor next month and, pending approval of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, could load nuclear fuel this spring.
Each of the 1,100-megawatt reactors at Watts Bar are capable of generating enough power for two cities the size of Chattanooga.
The repairs of the idled reactor are not requiring significant capital expenditures, Hopson said. But each day the reactor is idled, TVA loses more than $1 million worth of electricity during the cold winter months.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or at 757-6340.