Westinghouse announced Monday that it will soon begin shipping fuel to Tennessee's Watts Bar unit 2 – scheduled to be the first U.S. reactor to come online in 15 years.
According to a Westinghouse release, fuel from the company's Columbia, S.C., fuel fabrication facility will ship between June and August, with fuel loading expected to begin next year. The unit, currently under construction, recently received a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to receive and inspect fuel in anticipation of the reactor's completion.
Located 50 miles northeast of Chattanooga, Watts Bar currently operates a 1,123 megawatt Westinghouse pressurized water reactor licensed in 1996. The Tennessee Valley Authority, which operates the plant, started a second PWR but suspended construction in 1985, according to the NRC. In 2007 TVA resumed the project, with the NRC granting an extended construction permit the following year. The Westinghouse delivery will mark the first fuel shipment to a newly completed reactor in 15 years.