SODDY-DAISY, Tenn. — The Tennessee Valley Authority’s Sequoyah Nuclear Plant Unit 2 started a scheduled refueling and maintenance outage early Saturday morning after generating nearly 14.7 billion kilowatt hours of carbon-free energy, following 514 days of continuous operation.   

“Outages like this demonstrate TVA’s investment to deliver reliable, low-cost, carbon-free electricity for the Valley,” said Tony Williams, TVA Sequoyah site vice president. “The team will load new nuclear fuel and perform key maintenance activities that can only be safely completed with the unit offline.”

According to Williams, preparations begin years in advance. Planning for this outage began more than three years ago, in July 2015, as part of the site’s standard work management practices to ensure all work can be completed safely and as scheduled. 

“Sequoyah’s highly skilled workforce is making the most of this opportunity to ensure Unit 2 continues to operate safely and reliably until the next refueling outage about 18 months from now.”

An additional 1,300 TVA and contract employees are supplementing the site’s regular staff during the scheduled outage. Over 12,300 work activities are planned, including loading new fuel assemblies, performing inspections of reactor components, maintenance of plant equipment and installing unit enhancements.

Sequoyah Unit 2 is one of seven operational TVA nuclear reactors across the Valley. Collectively, TVA’s nuclear fleet safely and reliably provides about 40 percent of all electricity used by nearly 10 million people in the Tennessee Valley.

For more information about TVA and its 85-year mission of service to the Tennessee Valley, click here.