SPRING CITY, Tenn. – The Tennessee Valley Authority’s Watts Bar Nuclear Plant Unit 2 started a scheduled refueling and maintenance outage this weekend after generating nearly 14.2 billion kilowatt hours of carbon-free energy.

“Generating low-cost, carbon-free electricity is made possible by carefully planning and executing refueling and maintenance outages to ensure reliable energy is delivered to the people and businesses we serve,” said Tony Williams, Watts Bar site vice president. “We have a highly skilled workforce that understood the importance of safe behaviors at a nuclear site even before we added health protection measures for COVID-19. Their commitment to following additional health guidelines allowed us to safely complete the Unit 1 refueling outage this spring, and we truly appreciate their continued focus on health and safety as we begin this fall outage.”

Over 10,800 work activities are planned, including loading new fuel assemblies, performing inspections of reactor components, maintenance of plant equipment and installing unit enhancements.

Recognizing the unique challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, Watts Bar continues to take significant actions to help protect the health and well-being of employees and supplemental workers, including required health screenings prior to plant entry each day.

Watts Bar Unit 2 is one of seven operational TVA nuclear reactors across the Valley. Collectively, TVA’s nuclear fleet is the third largest in the nation, safely and reliably providing approximately 40% of all electricity used by nearly 10 million people in the Tennessee Valley.

For more information about TVA and its 87-year mission of service to the Tennessee Valley, click here.