USA fleet member Columbia Generating Station produced more clean, nuclear energy for the Northwest power grid during 2014 than any other year in its 30-year history.

Columbia sent nearly 9.5 million megawatt-hours of electricity to the grid, beating the previous calendar year generation record set in 2012 (9.3 million MWhrs). Columbia also set a generation record for a refueling outage year in 2013 (8.4 million MWhrs).

“We are doing what Energy Northwest does best: providing reliable, clean, cost-effective electricity to the region’s ratepayers,” said Mark Reddemann, Energy Northwest CEO. “During 2014, Columbia operated at a 98.6 percent capacity factor. That number directly reflects our team’s commitment to excellence in performance.”

Columbia was online every single day in 2014 and broke its record for consecutive days online in November, beating the previous record of 505 days set in April 2011. As of today, Columbia has been online for 560 consecutive days. The current run began when the plant was restarted following Columbia’s 2013 refueling and maintenance outage, which ended June 25, 2013. Columbia’s next refueling outage is scheduled to begin May 9.

In November, Columbia also marked five years without an unplanned shut-down.

“Our stakeholders expect us to be safe, reliable and predictable. We can’t achieve generation records such as these, safely, unless the entire team has that focus,” said Brad Sawatzke, Energy Northwest chief operating officer/chief nuclear officer.