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Beaver Valley Steam Generator Outage Achieves World-Class Performance

Posted on: Thursday, 20 April 2006, 09:01 CDT

April 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC) announced today the Beaver Valley Power Station Unit 1 achieved world- class performance as it returned to service on April 19.

Restarting 11 days ahead of schedule from a refueling-construction outage, the unit became the first plant in the world to cut a temporary opening in its Containment Building and replace its Steam Generators and Reactor Head within a 65-day timeframe. The Beaver Valley project also included replacing the turbine rotor and rewinding the main generator. Additionally, the project came in under budget.

"This project exemplifies world-class planning, teamwork and safe, disciplined execution," said FENOC President and Chief Nuclear Officer Gary Leidich. "It's particularly gratifying to note that, while performing thousands of activities in the plant, we met worker radiation safety stretch goals and incurred no OSHA-recordable FENOC employee incidents."

Factors contributing to the success included a strong emphasis on safety, a high level of readiness on the part of plant personnel, effective coordination between FENOC staff and contractors, effective use of industry lessons learned for steam generator replacement work, highly experienced contractors and strategic logistical planning for performing work in parallel.

"The work in the Containment was very complex and well choreographed," Mr. Leidich said. "We operated three large cranes and lift equipment for heavy loads in the Containment Building. For example, the Reactor Head transfer, alone, required more than 200 crane maneuvers. Accomplishing that without incident reflects well on the plan and the people executing it. The Beaver Valley team dealt with emergent issues such as repairing the generator exciter without impacting safety, quality of work or schedule."

Beaver Valley and other FENOC personnel, working with about 2,000 contractors, replaced the plant's three massive Steam Generators and the Reactor Head, as well as 60 of the reactor's 157 fuel assemblies. The Steam Generators are each 68 feet tall, 15 feet in diameter and weigh 368 tons; the reactor head is about eight feet high, 16 feet in diameter, and weighs more than 80 tons. Nearly eight million pounds of equipment was moved in and out of the Containment Building during the outage.

Significant work during this period included: - Creating the opening in the 3-1/2-foot thick steel-reinforced concrete Containment Building wall, using robotic equipment with high-pressure water spray to remove the concrete. - Cutting with torches and removing more than 1,000 pieces of steel rebar, with each piece tagged for positioning and welding when the opening was resealed. - Replacing the 180-ton main generator rotor and rewinding the stator. - Performing more than 1,000 welds, measuring a total of about 1-1/2 miles, and more than 80 weld radiographs for the Steam Generator installation. - Completing modifications to prepare for an anticipated 9.4 percent power uprate - this includes installation of the new, more efficient Steam Generators, as well as improvements to the Turbine Generator and other equipment. Uprates are expected to occur in increments over the next three years. - Installing a new, simplified Reactor Head assembly that will reduce the number of crane lifts necessary for removing and re-installing the head, eliminating three days from future outage schedules. - Completing a modification to increase atmospheric pressure in the Containment Building, making personnel entries during operations safer and more efficient. - Closing more than 3,500 maintenance work orders.

"The success of this outage positions the unit for an expected increase in generating capacity," Mr. Leidich said. "It is also an important milestone for when we seek license renewal for an additional 20 years of safe and reliable operations."

Prior to shutting down in February, Beaver Valley Unit 1 set a unit record with 456 days of consecutive operation and posted an availability factor of 100 percent since its previous refueling. In 2005, the unit also posted a 99.5 percent capability factor, the highest among U.S. nuclear power plants during that year.

FENOC is a subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp. , a diversified energy company headquartered in Akron, Ohio. FENOC operates Beaver Valley in Shippingport, Pennsylvania, as well as the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station in Oak Harbor, Ohio, and the Perry Nuclear Power Plant in Perry, Ohio.

Forward-Looking Statement: This news release includes forward-looking statements based on information currently available to management. Such statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties. These statements typically contain, but are not limited to, the terms "anticipate,""potential,""expect,""believe,""estimate" and similar words. Actual results may differ materially due to the speed and nature of increased competition and deregulation in the electric utility industry, economic or weather conditions affecting future sales and margins, changes in markets for energy services, changing energy and commodity market prices, replacement power costs being higher than anticipated or inadequately hedged, the continued ability of our regulated utilities to collect transition and other charges or to recover increased transmission costs, maintenance costs being higher than anticipated, legislative and regulatory changes (including revised environmental requirements), and the legal and regulatory changes resulting from the implementation of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (including, but not limited to, the repeal of the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935), the uncertainty of the timing and amounts of the capital expenditures (including that such amounts could be higher than anticipated) or levels of emission reductions related to the Consent Decree resolving the New Source Review litigation, adverse regulatory or legal decisions and outcomes (including, but not limited to, the revocation of necessary licenses or operating permits, fines or other enforcement actions and remedies) of governmental investigations and oversight, including by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the United States Attorney's Office, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the various state public utility commissions as disclosed in our Securities and Exchange Commission filings, generally, and with respect to the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station outage and heightened scrutiny at the Perry Nuclear Power Plant in particular, the timing and outcome of various proceedings before the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, including the transition rate plan filings for Met-Ed and Penelec, the continuing availability and operation of generating units, the ability of our generating units to continue to operate at, or near full capacity, our inability to accomplish or realize anticipated benefits from strategic goals (including employee workforce initiatives), the anticipated benefits from our voluntary pension plan contributions, our ability to improve electric commodity margins and to experience growth in the distribution business, our ability to access the public securities and other capital markets and the cost of such capital, the outcome, cost and other effects of present and potential legal and administrative proceedings and claims related to the August 14, 2003 regional power outage, circumstances which may lead management to seek, or the Board of Directors to grant, in each case in its sole discretion, authority for the implementation of a share repurchase program in the future, the risks and other factors discussed from time to time in our Securities and Exchange Commission filings, and other similar factors. We expressly disclaim any current intention to update any forward-looking statements contained herein as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company

CONTACT: Todd Schneider, +1-330-761-4055, or cell, +1-330-620-2895, forFirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company

Web site: http://www.firstenergycorp.com/

Source: PRNewswire

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