FirstEnergy Nuclear fleet achieves improved safety performance and reliable operating record in 2012

Wednesday, Feb 06, 2013

AKRON, Ohio, Feb. 5, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC) announced today that its fleet of power plants – the Beaver Valley Power Station in Shippingport, Pa; Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station in Oak Harbor, Ohio; and Perry Nuclear Power Plant in Perry, Ohio – achieved improved personal safety performance in 2012, with five federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recordable incidents.  This represents FENOC's second best OSHA performance since 1999.

Collectively, the sites have worked more than 13.3 million consecutive hours without a lost time accident.  Beaver Valley employees have worked more than 6.9 million hours, Davis-Besse employees more than 5.3 million hours and Perry employees more than 1.1 million hours without a lost time accident.

In addition, the FENOC fleet operated safely and reliably in 2012, generating 31.8 million megawatt-hours (Mwh) net of carbon-free electricity.  Typically, each megawatt produced by a power plant can supply approximately 1,000 homes with electricity.

Output in 2012 was 7.2 million Mwh for Beaver Valley Unit 1; 7 million Mwh for Beaver Valley Unit 2; 7.1 million Mwh for Davis-Besse; and 10.5 million Mwh for Perry.  During its fall 2012 refueling outage, Beaver Valley Unit 2 installed new low pressure turbines, adding approximately 29 megawatts of additional capacity to the unit by improving efficiency.

Both Beaver Valley Unit 1 and Perry are expected to undertake similar turbine upgrades during their next refueling outages.

"During 2012, FENOC continued to achieve safe, reliable and cost-effective performance as a fleet," said FENOC President and Chief Nuclear Officer Pete Sena.  "We will continue to pursue high operational standards as FENOC strives for industry-leading performance in 2013."

FENOC accomplished a fleet forced loss rate of .50 percent in 2012, its best annual fleet performance since the forced loss rate indicator was established in 2005.  Forced loss rate measures the percentage of time a plant is not producing electricity due to an unplanned power reduction or outage.

Beaver Valley also turned in industry-leading radiological control performance.  Collective online dose, which reflects controlled radiation exposure to workers, was limited to 448 millirem (mrem) for Unit 2 and 460 mrem for Unit 1, the best performance in the U.S. nuclear industry in 2012.

In addition, in 2012, each of the three FENOC stations completed construction of a state-of-the-art Emergency Operations Facility near the plant.  The new Emergency Operations Facilities reflect FENOC's commitment to protecting public health and safety by preparing the site to support timely, efficient communications with emergency responders in the unlikely event of an emergency.

FirstEnergy (NYSE: FE) is a diversified energy company headquartered in Akron, Ohio.  Its FENOC subsidiary operates the Beaver Valley Power Station in Shippingport, Pa., the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station in Oak Harbor, Ohio, and the Perry Nuclear Power Plant in Perry, Ohio.

SOURCE FirstEnergy Corp.