REFORM, Mo. - The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has completed its end-of-cycle performance assessment of Callaway nuclear plant, determining the plant's performance in 2017 "preserved public health and safety."
Fadi Diya, senior vice president and chief nuclear officer at Ameren Missouri's Callaway Plant, was recently notified of these results. The assessment reviewed performance indicators, inspection results and enforcement actions from Jan. 1 through Dec. 31.
The NRC also determined the performance at the Callaway Plant during the most recent quarter was within the Licensee Response Column, the highest performance category of the NRC's Reactor Oversight Process Action Matrix, because all inspection findings had very low safety significance (i.e., Green), and all PIs were within the expected range (i.e., Green). Therefore, the NRC plans to conduct ROP baseline inspections at the facility.
The plant is frequently inspected. In late June, the NRC completed a security inspection at the plant and found "very low security significance" findings. A refueling outage last year lasted longer than expected, while workers had a 10,000-item checklist to finish. The outage began Oct. 7 and 1,000 workers were temporarily added to the plant's 800-person workforce. The refueling and maintenance outage ended Dec. 20 with one-third of the plant's 193 fuel assemblies replaced and a complete overhaul of the main generator stator assembly, said Barry Cox, senior director of nuclear operations. A stator is the stationary part of a rotary system found in electric generators and motors, and more.
Refueling takes place about every 18 months. Prior to this planned outage, the Callaway plant had a continuous run of 514 days, one of the longest in the plant's 33-year history. The next refueling is planned in spring 2019.
The plant is licensed to operate through 2044. It typically generates 20 percent of the electricity for Ameren Missouri's 1.2 million customers.
An updated inspection plan, which includes planned security inspections, was provided to Diya. Routine inspections performed by resident inspectors were not included in this inspection plan. Last July, a new senior resident inspector, Dan Bradley, was appointed by the NRC. He originally joined the NRC in 2011 as a project engineer and previously spent six years in the U.S. Navy's submarine force. He is an employee of the federal government, not Ameren Missouri, and said the local NRC office can be reached at 573-676-3181.
The Callaway Plant began operating Dec. 19, 1984, and is the state's only commercial nuclear unit.