TVA takes Sequoyah Nuclear Plant offline
Both reactors at the Sequoyah Nuclear Plant are offline as of Thursday morning.
The reactors were shut down Tuesday — and have not been turned back on since.
EPB spokesperson Sophie Moore said that TVA asked EPB to “encourage our customers to reduce power use” starting at 9:30am on Tuesday until further notice.
According to a filing with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, both reactors were manually shut off by operators when they discovered not enough water was flowing into the steam generators.
The event report says “All safety systems responded normally, and the plant is currently stable” and that there was no impact on the health and safety of the public or plant personnel.
The first reactor went offline just after midnight Tuesday morning. The second was shut down just before 4:00am Tuesday
Several hours later, the Tennessee Valley Authority sent a request to EPB asking EPB customers to limit electricity use.
TVA sent us a statement on Tuesday, attributing the request to the heat wave slamming most of the eastern United States. But that statement did not mention that their Sequoyah reactors were offline.
Local 3 News has reached out to the TVA to see if the reactor issues also had anything to do with their request, but have not yet received a reply
It’s not yet known when the reactors could resume generating power.
The TVA says that Sequoyah can supply enough power to meet the needs of about 1.3 million homes in the Tennessee Valley each day.