The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is putting together a team to review a financially-troubled Ohio nuclear power plant’s response to several equipment failures and a recent reactor trip, the agency said this week.
Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station has experienced four emergency diesel generator failures over the last two years, NRC said in the statement dated Tuesday. The Oak Harbor, Ohio nuclear plant has two diesel generators designed to kick in if the site loses power and a third generator acting as a failsafe, NRC said. The commission will conduct an investigation to “review the company’s response to each diesel generator failure, including the company’s cause analysis, extent of condition reviews, maintenance practices and system design,” the agency statement said.
NRC is also going to be looking into a July 8 reactor trip at Davis-Besse, the statement said. According to an agency incident report, a circuit breaker failure during testing caused the reactor’s main turbine to automatically shut down, forcing operators to stabilize the plant.
The special inspection potentially adds to the list of worries already facing Davis-Besse, one of two nuclear plants at the center of a bribery scandal involving FirstEnergy and members of the Ohio state house.
FirstEnergy, a former subsidiary of which owned both Davis-Besse and the Perry Nuclear Power Plant, said last week that it agreed to pay out $230 million in fines for its involvement in the scandal which allegedly sought to bribe Ohio state legislators into passing a measure to keep the financially-struggling Davis-Besse and Perry afloat.
