Smoke restricted access to a battery room at unit 1 of North Carolina's Brunswick nuclear plant Monday, prompting operators to issue an unusual event declaration.
Just after 10 a.m., a standby UPS inverter cabinet was found smoking and leaking fluid, according to a report filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Although the inverter was not in service, and the condition did not affect the operability of other plant equipment, firefighters declared the battery room uninhabitable because of the smoke. The plant called the local fire department but did not end up needing its assistance, according to the report. The smoke subsided after the inverter was de-energized.
The unusual event, the least severe of the NRC's emergency declarations, ended less than a half hour after it began. The plant remained at full power throughout the event, which did not affect unit 2, according to the NRC. Both units are General Electric type 4 boiling water reactors operated by a subsidiary of Duke Energy.