The Sequoyah Nuclear Plant near Soddy-Daisy sits next to the Tennessee River.
For the second time this week following unexpected outages, TVA on Thursday night briefly returned to power generation the unit 1 reactor at the Sequoyah Nuclear Plant near Soddy-Daisy.
But unlike the unsuccessful restart on Monday, operators at Sequoyah expect to be able to successfully bring the reactor to full, sustained power this weekend.
The older of two reactors at Sequoyah first shut down last Friday and then shut down again early Monday because of problems in voltage fluctuations from the plant generator. The power fluctuations on the non-nuclear part of the plant forced the Unit 1 reactor to automatically shut down in both instances.
TVA spokesman Jim Hopson said the reactor ceased operation and was successfully shut down as designed following the voltage fluctuations. Hopson said there was no risk to the plant workers or the public form either incident.
Sequoyah workers have been assessing the cause of the power fluctuations this week and have made repairs to control devices and other equipment. Those repairs were tested Thursdaynight when the the Sequoyah unit was briefly returned to power generation and then executed a planned manual reactor trip in order to fully validate repairs that have been implemented.
"All systems operated as designed and, once successful test results have been confirmed, operators will return the unit to service," Hopson said today.
Sequoyah Unit 2 remains at 100 percent power.