The Energy Department’s Paducah Site in Kentucky lost power for about three hours Saturday.
A failed piece of electrical equipment caused one Tennessee Valley Authority power line to fall into other power lines that morning, Scott Brooks, a spokesman for the federal utility, said by email Wednesday. The TVA system provides electricity to the Paducah Site.
The failure was on a TVA line, and not directly on DOE property, Brooks said. However, power to the facility was temporarily lost. It was restored through a backup line to the Paducah Site.
A DOE spokesperson said the downed power line was at the boundary to the Paducah Site.
“Power to the site was restored early afternoon and offline systems began the process of powering back up,” the official said. “As a precaution the Emergency Operations Center was activated to monitor offline systems during the outage.” Most Paducah workers are off on Saturdays.
Commercial uranium enrichment at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant ceased in 2013. Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership, comprised of Jacobs, Fluor and BWX Technologies, has a $1.5 billion deactivation and remediation contract for the 3,500-acre property, which with extensions would run to mid-2027.
