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Second set of steam generators arrive at Diablo

By Staff

The second set of replacement steam generators that will keep Diablo Canyon Power Plant producing electricity until at least 2025 began arriving last Thursday at the nuclear facility near Avila

Beach.

A barge carrying two generators arrived at the Diablo Canyon intake cove around 10 a.m., with another barge carrying two more generators arriving last Friday.

The generators were expected to be delivered to the nuclear power plant the previous Tuesday, but rough seas delayed the arrival by two days, according to a Pacific Gas & Electric Co. spokeswoman.

Four replacement generators were delivered to the plant last year, with installation taking place earlier this year during the facility’s Unit 2 refueling outage.

The $706 million generator replacement project is the largest undertaken at Diablo Canyon by PG&E since the construction of the plant in the late 1960s, according to PG&E.

PG&E owns and operates Diablo Canyon, and was given approval by the California Public Utilities Commission in 2005 to proceed with the rate-payer-funded project.

Company shareholders are fronting funding for the project and, over time, the costs will be passed along to PG&E customers, the spokeswoman said.

Rates are expected to increase this year or in 2009 by about 2 percent for all PG&E customers, then taper off over time. The project is expected be paid off by 2025, according to PG&E.

If the steam generators aren’t replaced, the power plant would have to close within the next eight to nine years.

PG&E also has undertaken a dry-cask storage project at Diablo that will also allow the plant to keep operating until at least 2025. Once the project is complete, PG&E will begin transferring spent fuel rods from inside the plant, where they’re stored in pools of water, to dry casks on the hillside above the facility.

Diablo Canyon produces 20 percent of the power that all PG&E customers receive and 10 percent of the state’s electricity.