Brunswick Nuclear Plant leads the industry in capacity factor, operating performance, and quality refueling outages Progress Energy's Brunswick Nuclear Plant has steadily improved its performance over the past decade, culminating in a recent boiling water reactor world-record, 707-day operating run for Unit 1. That, as well as a very successful implementation of the first two phases of a four-year power uprate project and consistent top-quartile operations, makes BNP the winner of POWER magazine's 2003 Marmaduke Award.

Although there hasn't been a new nuclear unit in the U.S. in 25 years, the industry has "grown" the equivalent of more than two dozen plants since then by improving operating practices and raising the capacity of existing units. In 2002 the industry generated 778 million MWh, breaking the record of 769 million MWh set the prior year. You don't have to be a math wizard to realize that that's a big improvement over the 557 million MWh produced in 1990. Improving plants' capacity factors and rated outputs are the two main ways the industry has reinvented itself from the inside out.

Progress Energy (Raleigh, N.C.)--formed in November 2000 by the merger of Carolina Power & Light (CP&L) and Florida Power--operates over 22,000 MW of generation, including four nuclear plants in the Carolinas and Florida. Progress Energy is the majority owner (81.7%) of the Brunswick Nuclear Plant (BNP); North Carolina Eastern Municipal Power Agency owns the remainder. BNP (Figure 1, page 25), located on 1,200 acres west of the Cape Fear River, near Southport, N.C., operates on a two-year fuel cycle. Each spring, one of the plant's units is taken out of service for about a month to refuel the reactor and perform maintenance activities. From 2002 through 2005, that period is also being used to complete a large number of modifications that will increase the plant's output by 15%.

Record "breaker"

Unit 1's "breaker to breaker" 707-day operating run established a new world record for continuous operation of a nuclear unit, eclipsing the 668 days established in 1999 by Three Mile Island Unit 1. Worldwide, there are approximately 430 nuclear power plants in 31 countries. Light-water reactors such as those at the Brunswick Nuclear Plant are at the heart of nearly 350 of these plants.

"The performance of Unit 1 demonstrates that it is possible to continuously operate a light-water reactor on a two-year fuel cycle," says BNP Vice President Jack Keenan. "While we will always shut down a unit to ensure safety, our long-term goal is to operate both of our units continuously between refueling outages. In fact, we operated both units without an unplanned shutdown in 2001 and 2002--taking units out of service only for scheduled refueling and maintenance outages--and established...