SPRING CITY, Tenn. – The Tennessee Valley Authority’s Watts Bar Nuclear Plant Unit 1 is once again producing reliable, carbon-free energy after safely completing a scheduled refueling and maintenance outage on Friday, June 5. Plant operators are returning the unit to its full capacity, generating enough power for 650,000 homes.

“Workers, safely completed approximately 10,300 activities during the outage,” said Tony Williams, Watts Bar site vice president. “Our employees take pride in working safely, and carefully following additional health precautions in place due to COVID-19 helped ensure we had a healthy workforce to safely refuel and restore Unit 1 to provide reliable, carbon-free energy to the people and businesses of the Tennessee Valley.”

In addition to replacing 92 of the unit’s 193 fuel assemblies, detailed inspections of the reactor vessel were conducted to confirm all components continue to meet or exceed all design requirements and perform their safety functions. Other major maintenance activities included replacing or refurbishing a number of motors, valves and other plant systems and components, as well as several modifications for improving safety.

Watt Bar’s two units produce enough power for 1.3 million homes. TVA also operates three units at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant near Decatur, Alabama, and two units at Sequoyah Nuclear Plant near Soddy Daisy, Tennessee. Collectively, TVA’s nuclear fleet reliably provides approximately 40 percent of the low-cost, carbon-free electricity used across the Valley.

For more information about TVA and its 87-year mission of service to the Tennessee Valley, click here.