Plant shutdown costs $62 million

A prolonged refueling outage at the Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Plant is estimated to cost about $62 million.

KansasÂ’ only nuclear power generator, located about 80 miles southwest of Kansas City in Burlington, has been shut down since March 19.

Jenny Hageman, spokeswoman for the Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Corp., said the plant went offline for planned maintenance and refueling.

ItÂ’s expected to resume normal operations by late May, Hageman said.

Although all nuclear generators go offline for routine refueling and maintenance, Wolf CreekÂ’s inactivity for about two months represents a relatively long period of time for a shutdown, Hageman said.

“It depends on the work that is scheduled,” Hageman said. “They vary based on the scope. Because this was an outage in which we were replacing the turbine rotors, that factors in to the duration.”

Earlier this year, turbine rotors manufactured by General Electric Co. were damaged in transit to Burlington, though Hageman said that has not factored into the prolonged plant shutdown.

Kansas City Power & Light Co. and Westar Energy Inc. each own 47 percent of the Wolf Creek plant, with the Kansas Electric Power Cooperative owning the remaining 6 percent.

ItÂ’s been open since 1985.

On March 8, the Wolf Creek reactor was made the subject of heightened scrutiny by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission due to its safety performance.

That means the plant will undergo more regulatory inspection until safety issues are fixed.

Related News

IEA: Electricity investment surpasses oil and gas for the first time

LONDON - Investments in electricity surpassed those in oil and gas for the first time ever in 2016 on a spending splurge on renewable energy and power grids as the fall in crude prices led to deep cuts, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said.

Total energy investment fell for the second straight year by 12 per cent to US$1.7 trillion compared with 2015, the IEA said. Oil and gas investments plunged 26 per cent to US$650 billion, down by over a quarter in 2016, and electricity generation slipped 5 per cent.

"This decline (in energy investment) is attributed to two…

READ MORE
lightning bolts

Big prizes awarded to European electricity prediction specialists

READ MORE

utility hard hat

Hydro One bends to government demands, caps CEO pay at $1.5M

READ MORE

Iceland Cryptocurrency mining uses so much energy, electricity may run out

READ MORE

Western Canada drought impacting hydropower production as reservoirs run low

READ MORE