D.C. Cook Nuclear Plant employees and contractors recently wrapped up another successful refueling outage. Cook Plant’s Unit 2 reactor underwent the refueling outage March 23 and was connected back to the grid on May 3.

Amid the 41-day refueling outage, employees and more than 1,000 additional contract workers conducted approximately 12,000 job tasks totaling 184,000 work-hours over two daily 12-hour work shifts.

“I am proud of the teamwork and professionalism shown by our employees, contract and vendor partners who made this outage a success,” said Cook’s Plant manager, Luke Ellis. “When you consider the amount of work just completed and for all of it to have been done safely, it is really a testament to our team holding safety as a core value.”

Along with refueling the reactor and performing regular maintenance and testing work, the outage also included replacing a reactor coolant pump (RCP) motor, performing periodic testing on the steam generators, and replacing the balance of plant (BOP) battery. An upgraded overspeed protection system was also installed for the main turbine and main feed pump turbines.

“This was a very successful refueling outage,” Ellis said. “We made the investments required to meet our commitment to provide safe and reliable generation of clean electricity to the surrounding community.”