BALANCE OF PLANT | STEAM GENERATOR REPLACEMENT


steam generators at Watts Bar


Swapping


Although Watts Bar is the most modern PWR in the US reactor fleet, owner-operators TVA decided to uprate the steam generator design and use more modern alloys resistant to stress corrosion cracking. Carol Barajas, vice president of the Watts Bar steam generator replacement project, talks to NEI about this key life extension upgrade


UNIT 2 OF THE TENNESSEE Valley Authority’s Watts Bar nuclear power plant returned to service last summer after replacing the reactor’s four steam generators. Although Watts Bar Unit 2 is America’s newest nuclear plant, construction actually began in 1972. It was suspended in 1985 having been about 55% complete when construction stopped. Work was resumed in 2007 and commercial operations at the 1165MWe Westinghouse PWR started in October 2016. A year earlier the NRC had approved a forty- year operating license for Unit 2, which is located on a 1700 acre (688 Ha) site on the northern end of Chickamauga Reservoir, near Spring City in Eastern Tennessee. Operated by TVA, Unit 2 was built at a construction cost of some $4.7 billion.


Above: The new steam generators were installed through holes in the top of the containment building 22 | March 2023 | www.neimagazine.com


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