A refueling outage at Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant began April 29 following more than 500 days of continuous operation since Unit One was last refueled. More than 600 nuclear workers from across the country have traveled to Prairie Island to provide additional support to ensure the success of this outage. According to Prairie Island’s Site Vice President Mark Schimmel, “Delivering a successful outage SAFELY as well as on time and within budget is critical to site performance. Expertise from many resources is being employed to complete the off-line work identified as most important and prepare the reactor for another continuous run until its next scheduled refueling.”
Several nuclear energy specialists assisting with the outage have been made available to Prairie Island through the Utilities Service Alliance (USA) resource sharing arrangement. “The value of the USA resource sharing program is phenomenal. Each shared resource we use through USA offsets up to two supplemental workers,” said Kevin Davison, plant manager.
The following USA workers volunteered to travel to Prairie Island from across the U.S. to support 1R27. They have been working side-by-side with Xcel Energy employees and supplemental workers to complete outage work. In Instruments and Controls (I&C), Larry Whittington from the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station in Arizona and Ignacio Ibarra and Luis Sanchez from Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant in Texas conducted calibrations on primary and secondary systems and replaced and repaired instrumentation on Unit One. In Mechanical Maintenance, Duane Wilson III and Josh Crowe, also from Palo Verde, worked primarily on the diesel generators and circ water pump. Another Palo Verde Mechanical Maintenance employee, Erik Rose, worked on the main feed-water pump 12, cir water pump 11, and condensate pump. Fonda Grant, from Cooper Nuclear Station in Nebraska, provided supervision in Mechanical Maintenance. In Electrical Maintenance, Elbert Morgan, also from Palo Verde, worked on the RCP solenoid valve, conducted testing and preventative maintenance on the polar crane. Jim Johannsen and Ray Vannoy traveled from DC Cook to support Radiation Protection outage activities. The USA workers will depart from Prairie Island this week. Schimmel continued, “The most important benefit received from this USA program is the perspectives these workers share about how we can improve efficiencies and safety. USA has been an excellent resource for providing this expertise during refueling outages at Prairie Island.”
Left to right: Kevin Davison, Luis Sanchez, Elbert Morgan, Larry Whittington, Duane Wilson III, Ignacio Ibarra, Erik Rose, & Mark Schimmel.