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Unit 1 at PPL's Susquehanna nuclear power plant is again safely producing electricity, now that workers have completed the facility's exhaustive start-up procedures. Friday's (4/23) end to the unit's refueling and inspection outage also marks the completion of the largest improvement project in the plant's 20-year history.

"The upgrades we've completed during the Unit 1 outage, as well as those done last spring on Unit 2, will provide increased generation capacity and further position PPL as a major supplier of safe and reliable power for the residents and businesses of northeastern Pennsylvania," said Herbert D. Woodeshick, special assistant to the president for PPL Susquehanna.

"This major investment in the plant boosts efficiency so Susquehanna is now producing about 4 percent more power while using the same amount of fuel," he said.

During the refueling and inspection outage, crews replaced the unit's four steam turbines, which will add about 50 megawatts of electrical output - enough to power about 50,000 homes. Workers also installed new main transformers to handle the increased electrical load and modified 20 jet pumps that circulate coolant water in the reactor's fuel core to improve efficiency, Woodeshick said.

While performing more than 2,600 tasks to provide preventive maintenance and improve plant performance, work crews replaced 280 fuel assemblies - about 40 percent of the unit's uranium fuel.

In addition, workers identified and repaired defects in welds on two nozzles that connect the reactor to its water circulation system. This system takes water out of the reactor and returns it at high pressure to help control the reactor's power level.

"These types of defects are known in the industry, and the repairs were made using an established welding process that has been used at other sites," Woodeshick said. "The systematic inspections we conduct during our refueling outages are designed to find and correct just this type of thing before it becomes an operational problem."

The 2,300-megawatt Susquehanna plant has two boiling water reactors. Unit 1 began commercial operation in 1983, and Unit 2 came on line in 1985. Refueling and inspection outages are conducted for each of the plant's reactors every two years on alternating schedules. This is the 13th refueling and inspection outage for Unit 1.

Unit 1 generated about 17.3 billion kilowatt-hours, operating at a capacity factor of 95 percent during its two-year run prior this outage. Capacity factor measures the electricity produced to what the unit would produce by operating continuously at full power.

The Susquehanna plant, located about seven miles north of Berwick, is owned jointly by PPL Susquehanna LLC and Allegheny Electric Cooperative Inc. and is operated by PPL Susquehanna.

PPL Susquehanna is one of PPL Corporation's generating facilities. Headquartered in Allentown, Pa., PPL Corporation (NYSE: PPL) controls about 11,500 megawatts of generating capacity in the United States, sells energy in key U.S. markets and delivers electricity to nearly 5 million customers in Pennsylvania, the United Kingdom and Latin America. More information is available at www.pplweb.com.

SOURCE: PPL Corporation

CONTACT: Herbert D. Woodeshick of PPL Corporation, +1-570-759-2285, or
fax, +1-610-774-5281

Web site: http://www.pplweb.com/