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What is the current status of Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station?
OPPD’s Fort Calhoun Station has been safely shut down since April 9, 2011, for a planned refueling outage. The Missouri River flooding of 2011 interrupted that outage work last summer due to the historic river levels.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has place Fort Calhoun Station into Chapter 0350 which is a special category of the NRC’s inspection manual for nuclear plants that are in extended shutdowns with performance issues. The process gives the NRC the flexibility to address multiple issues and provides more structure around plant-restart.
While the plant remains safe, OPPD is taking aggressive and in-depth measures to manage the current status of the plant to return Fort Calhoun Station to a high performing plant.
Why is OPPD bringing Exelon Nuclear to help with Fort Calhoun Station recovery?
Exelon has a proven track record of running top-performing nuclear plants and helping plants recover and achieve sustained operational excellence.
The largest operator of nuclear power plants in the U.S., Exelon has vast resources and experience.
With this arrangement, Exelon is:
- Providing experienced assistance in the recovery of the plant
- Serving as the single point of responsibility for recovery efforts
- Offering technical expertise
Exelon is NOT:
Currently, a large number of projects are under way at Fort Calhoun Station, involving numerous contractor personnel.
Exelon has a long history of managing similar recovery efforts. Exelon can draw upon its expertise which, in the long run, will help OPPD to reduce costs and increase efficiencies.
What will this cost OPPD and its customer-owners?
After looking at all factors (costs, resources, skill sets) OPPD determined bringing in a recovery expert like Exelon would be the best and most cost-efficient way to start the plant back up in a timely manner. The sooner the regulatory issues are resolved and the plant is restarted, the sooner Fort Calhoun Station can generate electricity.
To help offset the costs, non-safety-related projects can be delayed and we will continue to look at ways to increase efficiencies which in turn will reduce our costs.
Because Exelon is a publicly traded company, we cannot reveal contract terms due to business confidentiality.
It is too early to say how this might impact future rates. However, OPPD will continue to closely monitor costs and find ways of being more efficient in non-safety related activities.
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