Unit 1 at Southern Co.'s Vogtle nuclear plant in Georgia powered down over the weekend for a scheduled refueling outage.
"Vogtle unit 1 marked its 25th year of safe, reliable operations in May of this year. Our constant dedication to the maintenance of this facility is what allows milestones like that to be achieved," Site President Tom Tynan said in a Southern release.
Hundreds of workers from other Southern plants – as well as from contractors that include Westinghouse, General Electric and Williams – will join the plant's staff of 900 to complete inspections and maintenance tasks. Unit 2, meanwhile, will continue to generate power.
Both units near Augusta, Ga., are roughly 1,100 megawatt Westinghouse four-loop pressurized water reactors, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Southern is also building two additional, AP1000 Westinghouse reactors at the plant.