Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Unit Undergoing Restart Process

---

Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) (NYSE:TVC) (Knoxville, Tennessee) is one year into a five-year program to restart one of its three nuclear units at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Power plant. The company is 16 percent complete with the restart of the 1,152 megawatt (MW) unit 1, which has been shutdown since 1985. Unit 1 is located at TVA's 3,456 MW three-unit nuclear power station in Morgan County, Decatur, Alabama.

The TVA board approved the Unit 1 restart in May 2002. Bechtel Corporation (San Francisco, California) is providing the engineering and design for the project and is about 34 percent complete with the engineering.

Stone & Webster a division of the Shaw Group (Baton Rouge, Louisiana) is performing the construction portion of the project and are about 11 percent complete.

The Project has been divided into four sections: (1) The Dry Well (Main Containment Building) which is made up of 6-8 inch structural steel encased in 4-6 foot concrete; (2) Reactor Building (Secondary Containment); (3) Control Building; and (4) Turbine Building.

In addition, there are support projects like the rebuild of the sixth mechanical draft cooling tower that burned down in the past. At the peak of construction it is estimated that approximately 2400 contract personnel will be on site with another 60-100 TVA personnel over seeing the project.

Unit 1 was originally commissioned in 1974 and is a General Electric (GE) Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) that provides 13.38 million pounds per hour of steam at 950 psig and 544F to run an 1,152 MW GE steam turbine/generator set. TVA projects the cost to return this unit to service will be between $ 1.7 & 1.8 billion. The schedule at this point still calls for operation by May 2007.

TVA was formed in 1933 by the United States Congress and has main offices located in Knoxville, Chattanooga and Nashville; TN. Employing over 13,000, TVA is a $6.8 billion self-supporting federal corporation and America's largest public power producer.