Indian Point Unit 2 Shut Down for Refueling Outage

Buchanan — Control room operators at the Indian Point unit 2 nuclear power plant shut down the unit to begin its 21st scheduled refueling outage at 1 a.m. on Monday. 

Unit 2 was online generating electricity for more than 16,500 hours—or more than 99 percent of the time—since it returned to service from its previous refueling outage in April 2012. 

“About 2,000 workers, including 1000 additional highly skilled contract employees, will help perform hundreds of scheduled maintenance activities and inspections during the Unit 2 refueling outage,” said John Ventosa, site vice president and top Entergy official at Indian Point. “Indian Point’s unit 2 has safely and reliably generated electricity for New Yorkers over the past two years and we look forward to its continued safe operation for years to come.” 

U.S. nuclear power plants are among the most reliable of any type of electricity generator, operating on average more than 90-percent of the time. Nuclear plants also help regional electricity grids maintain a diverse array of fuel generation and protect against an over-reliance on a single fuel type. 

Unit 3 continues operating at full power and completed its last refueling outage in March 2013. 

Indian Point Energy Center, in Buchanan, NY, is home to two operating nuclear power plants, unit 2 and unit 3, which generate approximately 2000 megawatts of electricity for homes, business and public facilities in New York City and Westchester County. 

Entergy Corporation is an integrated energy company engaged primarily in electric power production and retail distribution operations. Entergy owns and operates power plants with approximately 30,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity, including more than 10,000 megawatts of nuclear power, making it one of the nation’s leading nuclear generators. Entergy delivers electricity to 2.8 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Entergy has annual revenues of more than $11 billion and approximately 14,000 employees.