Published: Saturday, April 03, 2010
By Angie Favot
FRENCHTOWN TWP. –– DTE Energy’s Fermi 2 nuclear power plant reactor is operating at low power while work is done on a problem with a device that condenses reactor steam back into water.
Guy Cerullo, DTE Energy spokesman at the plant, said the plant shut down automatically March 25 because of an electrical short in a circuit on the plant’s turbine.
Cerullo said the restart process began March 27.
“The cause of Thursday’s shutdown was determined to be a fault in a protective circuit that conservatively shut down the turbine,” he said. “Right now, we are operating at 4 percent power while we assess an issue with the main condenser vacuum.”
He said that as soon as the issue is resolved, the plant will return to full power, but he didn’t know when that would be.
Cerullo said the vacuum is required to convert steam back into water and then to send it back through a closed loop system in the reactor.
The facility was shut down from Sept. 30 to Nov. 12 because of a hydrogen gas leak into the generator’s cooling systems. Cerullo said the two are not related.
The plant is owned by DTE Energy and is operated by Detroit Edison. It provides about 15 percent of the power to DTE’s 2.1 million customers in the region.
Source: http://thenewsherald.com/articles/2010/04/03/news/doc4bb774970f640919249272.txt
By Angie Favot
FRENCHTOWN TWP. –– DTE Energy’s Fermi 2 nuclear power plant reactor is operating at low power while work is done on a problem with a device that condenses reactor steam back into water.
Guy Cerullo, DTE Energy spokesman at the plant, said the plant shut down automatically March 25 because of an electrical short in a circuit on the plant’s turbine.
Cerullo said the restart process began March 27.
“The cause of Thursday’s shutdown was determined to be a fault in a protective circuit that conservatively shut down the turbine,” he said. “Right now, we are operating at 4 percent power while we assess an issue with the main condenser vacuum.”
He said that as soon as the issue is resolved, the plant will return to full power, but he didn’t know when that would be.
Cerullo said the vacuum is required to convert steam back into water and then to send it back through a closed loop system in the reactor.
The facility was shut down from Sept. 30 to Nov. 12 because of a hydrogen gas leak into the generator’s cooling systems. Cerullo said the two are not related.
The plant is owned by DTE Energy and is operated by Detroit Edison. It provides about 15 percent of the power to DTE’s 2.1 million customers in the region.
Source: http://thenewsherald.com/articles/2010/04/03/news/doc4bb774970f640919249272.txt
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