WARRENVILLE, Ill. — Exelon Generation’s Illinois nuclear facilities operated reliably this summer and are now refueled and ready to take on winter weather. Coming off one of their best seasons ever for outage performance, all six Exelon Generation Illinois nuclear stations completed comprehensive winter readiness activities this year to make them even more reliable and resilient as temperatures drop and demand for power rises.
“We prepare for winter all year long,” said Bryan Hanson, Exelon Generation’s Chief Nuclear Officer. “We executed our 2017 refueling outages flawlessly and successfully completed a host of ‘winter readiness’ maintenance activities to keep our fleet of nuclear power facilities online when they are needed most.”
Exelon Generation’s Illinois fleet of 11 reactors at six locations are operating more than 93.5 percent of the time. This metric, called capacity factor, is a key industry performance indicator and Exelon Generation is ready to continue this record of outstanding performance this winter. No other large-scale carbon-free power source comes close to matching this level of reliability.
Exelon Generation workers spend months ensuring that backup generators and redundant equipment is ready for inclement weather. This fall, operators and maintenance personnel inspected freeze protection systems, tested electrical equipment, and properly aligned plant systems to prepare all Exelon Generation facilities for sub-zero temperatures, icy conditions and heavy snowfall. These efforts are in addition to the many equipment upgrades performed during refueling outages.
