Progress Energy idles nuclear plant

Progress Energy idled its Shearon Harris nuclear plant in southwest Wake County on Sunday night after plant operators discovered an oil leak.

The leak was discovered at 10:42 p.m. as maintenance workers were changing an oil filter on a platform used to lubricate the main generator. The leak arose from a faulty handle on the filter, Hughes said.

"This is a non-nuclear issue," said Mike Hughes, a spokesman for the Raleigh-based utility. "It's a mechanical issue. "

Roger Hannah, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the mechanical malfunction poses no public safety risk and does not represent a problem with the nuclear reactor. The company shut down the plant because the generator it feeds is incapacitated.

"If a generator is not available to take the steam, it doesn't make sense to keep running the plant and dumping the steam with no way to make electricity," Hannah said.

Hughes said he couldn't project when the plant will resume operating.

During a nuclear outage, a power company has to make up the lost electricity by using other power plants or buying power from other electric utilities. The costs can mount quickly in the summer when power is in short supply and prices are high.
Spring and fall are the times that power companies schedule outages for refueling and maintenance.

The Shearon Harris outage was not planned, but happened during mild weather that will minimize the cost of replacement power. Those extra costs are paid for by customers.

In the past five years, Shearon Harris has had one unplanned outage a year. The previous unplanned outage, in August 2008, lasted less than 23 days to repair a broken condenser seal on the turbine.