The Columbia Generating Station, run by Energy Northwest, has been offline since Feb. 12. That’s because a faulty electrical filter tripped both of the reactor’s recirculation water pumps. Those pumps influence power levels. Those components were fixed as crews worked in shifts around the clock during the holiday weekend.
“It caused the reactor recirculation pumps to trip offline. That is when the operators shut down the plant manually so that we could take a look at the system,” said Kelly Rae, a spokesperson for Energy Northwest.
Rae says the plant will first connect to the grid at about 15% percent of its capacity. Then, it will ramp up to 100% capacity over the course of a couple of days.
“At no point was there ever any concern for the public. The station is simply offline; it's not producing power while we took time to do some maintenance and get it back into a reliable position,” she said.
Rae says her agency has informed the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission about going offline, but doesn’t expect any penalties. An emailed statement from Tressa Smith, a spokesperson with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, stated, “The NRC is aware of the shutdown at Columbia. Our resident inspector is onsite and monitoring the plant's actions. We are satisfied the unit remains safe at this time.”
During this unplanned outage, the Bonneville Power Administration leaned into its hydropower capacity to make up the power difference.
“We have coordinated with CGS staff during this outage and are pleased to see the plant being brought back online,” said Kevin Wingert with BPA. “CGS helps to better position the federal power system as we head toward spring and summer when we face more complex operations with fish requirements and summer peak loads.”
The Columbia Generating Station is the Northwest’s only commercial nuclear power plant, located outside Richland, Washington. It’s the third-largest electricity generator in Washington state, behind the Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams, according to Energy Northwest.
