South Texas Project Unit 2 to Remain Offline Until Second Quarter 2012

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Researched by Industrial Information Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Unit 2 at the South Texas Project (STP) recently returned to service from a refueling outage on November 22, but tripped offline due to a generator malfunction in the early hours of November 28. Officials at STP have reported a generator stator coil explosion, which caused copper dust and debris to damage vital pieces of equipment in the generator.

Upon shutdown, a steam dump valve failed to open, causing a hydrogen leak in the unit. The extent of the damage has the unit down for an additional four months, while repairs are being made. The rotor has been taken out and shipped to Charlotte, N.C., where Siemens Westinghouse will have the task of cleaning and refurbishing the rotor. The exciter, which housed the stator coil that malfunctioned, also will be shipped off for refurbishment.

During this four month outage, the stator, which also is in the generator, will be dismantled to undergo a stator rewind. Siemens Westinghouse has been awarded the contract for the complete rebuilding of the generator and will handle all refurbishments of the exciter, stator and rotor for the unit. If maintenance proceeds as planned, the unit will return to service in early April 2012.

The South Texas Project is a nuclear power station located in Wadsworth, Texas. The station became operational in 1988, with one 1,280-MW Siemens AG (NYSE:SI) (Munch, Germany) steam turbine. The addition of the 1,280-MW capacity of Unit 2 in 1989 gives STP a total combined capacity of 2,560 MW.

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