USA fleet member Fermi 2’s new main generator rotor arrived on site in late April — reaching the end of a long journey from California.

In 2015, Fermi 2 purchased the rotor from San Onofre Nuclear Generator Station, or SONGS, in California. That plant is now shut down.

Ron Freeman led the effort to get the rotor to Fermi. He is the former turbine maintenance supervisor at SONGS. He said the rotor had been operating at the plant a short time prior to the plant shut down.

The rotor was removed from SONGS in 2015 and shipped to Richmond, Virginia — a journey of about 2,635 miles. In Virginia, crews performed many tests and inspections, along with some minor refurbishments.

From Virginia, the rotor was shipped another 593 miles to Fermi.

It weighs about 180 tons and the special container it was shipped in weighs another 17 tons. It is about 57 feet long.

The rotor will remain in a storage facility — with regular checks and monitoring — until 2019, when crews will relocate it to the Turbine Deck. Crews will install it into the plant in a future refuel outage along with a new generator stator.

Removing the rotor at SONGs.