ATHENS –  On Tuesday, March 4, TVA’s Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant Unit 2 was safely taken offline for its scheduled refueling and maintenance outage. Upon completion, the unit will be prepared to provide reliable, affordable and carbon-free energy to the people of the Tennessee Valley region for its next generating cycle.

More than 800 contractors and shared resource employees will support the Browns Ferry team in completing more than 10,000 work activities being performed during this outage.

“This effort will include numerous inspections, tests, maintenance work and replacements to further strengthen the reliability of our equipment,” said Browns Ferry Site Vice President Daniel Komm. “Nuclear power provides our region with energy security — and we will work to bring Unit 2 back online as soon as feasible.”

When Unit 2 was taken offline to begin this outage, it had achieved a record run for the nuclear fleet of more than 700 days of continuous operation. “Achieving this milestone demonstrates the commitment we have made to safely meeting the needs of the Valley,” Komm said.

On Thursday, March 6, Unit 3 was returned to service after maintenance was performed on the units’ Generator system, which supports the transferring of power produced by the unit to the grid.  During this maintenance window, the generator was fully inspected, and important components were replaced to strengthen the unit’s reliability before start up.

TVA’s investment in improvements at all three nuclear power plants helps ensure the energy needs of the Tennessee Valley are met for decades to come. This maintenance also supports TVA’s intention to extend the service life of its power plants with Browns Ferry being the first TVA Nuclear Power Plant to submit an application for subsequent license renewal to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Browns Ferry Unit 2 is one of seven TVA nuclear reactors generating reliable, affordable and carbon-free energy across TVA’s seven-state region. The TVA nuclear fleet is the third largest in the nation, providing about 40 percent of all electricity used by nearly 10 million people in the Tennessee Valley.