Midwest Nuke Struggles to Remain Online

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). Detroit Edison Company’s (NYSE:DTE) Fermi Nuclear station in Newport, Michigan, was de-rated at 64% capacity on Wednesday, August 9, 2006, with 416 megawatts offline, due to re-circulating pump issues. On Tuesday, the unit was at full capacity until midday when plant workers made the decision to ramp the unit down to 57% capacity and begin maintenance on the troublesome pump. The problem occurred when one of the units’ recirculation pumps started to run under speed because of a failed speed controller. Contacts at the station have confirmed that the unit is to return to full capacity by Wednesday evening, possibly Thursday morning.

This station has been online for a total of nine days and will continue to make an effort to remain this way. The unit had just recently returned from a forced outage, in which a transmission line connected to the plant broke, causing the feed-water pump to trip. This outage lasted four days. In early June, this same unit suffered a blown transformer and was offline four days and was brought down again two weeks later to perform a transformer replacement.

Plant officials have been steadily monitoring the unit to maintain an online status until its expected refuel, which will take place in the fall of 2007. This outage is expected to last for approximately three weeks.

Detroit Edison generates, transmits, and distributes electricity to 2.2 million customers in southeastern Michigan. With an 11,080-megawatt system capacity, the company uses coal, nuclear fuel, natural gas and hydroelectric pumped storage to generate its electrical output. Founded in 1903, Detroit Edison is the largest electric utility in Michigan and one of the largest in the nation.

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