SPRING CITY, Tenn. – The Tennessee Valley Authority’s Watts Bar Nuclear Plant Unit 1 returned to operation on December 10 after the team completing a scheduled refueling and maintenance outage that will add approximately 24 megawatts of electricity to the unit’s typical 1,200MW output. That total generation will help support decades of additional reliable generation of carbon-free energy. During the outage, the Watts Bar team safely completed more than 12,000 work activities to return the unit to full generating capacity and supply enough energy for at least 650,000 homes.

“The work our team members completed during this outage will allow us to continue to provide safe, reliable, carbon-free electricity for people throughout the Tennessee Valley for the next 18-month operating cycle,” said Chris Reneau, Watts Bar site vice president. “As the region continues to grow at a rapid rate and the need for power grows with it, we’re appreciative that our highly skilled team of TVA, union, and contract partners works safely and with full attention to craftsmanship and operational excellence to make the upgrades and enhancements further to improve the reliability of Unit 1 and our plant.”

In addition to replacing 92 of Unit 1’s 193 fuel assemblies, the Watts Bar team performed detailed inspections of reactor components and other plant systems to ensure continued safe operation of all components, replaced or serviced plant equipment, and installed enhancements to help the unit continue safe, reliable operation for years to come. The team attributes the increase in power for Unit 1 to upgrades made during the outage, such as replacing two low-pressure turbine rotors and increasing the cooling tower, condenser, and plant efficiency.

Watts Bar Unit 1 is one of seven operational TVA nuclear reactors across the Valley. TVA’s nuclear fleet safely and reliably provides more than 40% of all electricity generated by TVA. Combined with other parts of TVA’s diverse generation system, nuclear power is the major contributor as the agency works to be net-zero by 2050.