OAK HARBOR, Ohio — Davis-Besse nuclear power plant resumed a startup Thursday after experiencing a problem Wednesday with two of its four reactor coolant pumps, a spokesman for the plant’s operator said.
A news release from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said that while the unit was operating at zero percent power while starting up from a refueling outage at 12:40 p.m. Wednesday, the reactor was “manually tripped due to a trip of two of four Reactor Coolant Pumps.”
The incident was characterized as nonemergency and as having no impact on the safety of the public or plant personnel. The plant, which is owned by Energy Harbor Corp., is along the Lake Erie shoreline, in Ottawa County about 30 miles from downtown Toledo.
The release said all systems responded normally and the plant was stabilized. Decay heat was being removed by discharging steam to the main condenser, and the cause of the reactor coolant pump trips was under investigation, the NRC said.
Jason Copsey, senior account executive for Falls, a company providing media relations support for Energy Harbor, previously known as FirstEnergy Solutions, said the reactor was manually tripped by operators per the response procedures and training based on the loss of two reactor coolant pumps.
He said loss of the reactor coolant pumps occurred when a transformer fuse failed.
“The cause of the fuse failure was corrected, reactor coolant pumps restored and unit startup is in progress. There were no complications resulting from the trip,” he said. The refueling outage is continuing.
The plant was taken offline Feb. 29 for normal refueling and maintenance.
First Published March 26, 2020, 3:19 p.m.
