Oyster Creek Offline After Electrical Service Disrupted

Electrical service to approximately 22,000 Ocean County residents and Oyster Creek Generating Station has been restored after it was temporarily disrupted, causing the plant to take its reactor offline on Monday morning.

An Unusual Event, which is the lowest of four Nuclear Regulatory Commission emergency classifications, was declared at 3:41 a.m. and terminated at 5:38 a.m. after Jersey Central Power & Light crews corrected the issue, a news release said.

JCP&L confirmed that the power outage impacted thousands of Ocean County residents in parts of Lacey, Waretown, Barnegat and Berkeley Township, spokesman Stan Prater said. All power was restored by 6 a.m., and the root cause is still under investigation.

The Unusual Event was declared because there was a loss of off-site power for greater than 15 minutes, NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan explained. The loss of power appears to have resulted from an electrical fault with the 230-kilovolt line that provides power to the plant.

While the reactor was offline, two diesel-powered generators supplied electrical power to key plant components, the news release said.

“All safety systems functioned as designed,” Sheehan said. “The plant is being taken to cold shutdown, which means the reactor and associated systems will be cooled down and depressurized.”

The nuclear plant will remain offline until everything is completely cooled down, plant spokesperson Suzanne D’Ambrosio said.

“It’s a slow process to put the plant back online. It’s a preferred method to wait until we’re in complete cold shutdown and then slowly and deliberately do all our checks and tests and then go back online,” she said.

While the plant is offline, staff will take advantage and perform maintenance tasks that they otherwise could not do when the reactor is functioning, she said. It could be a few days before the plant goes back online.

“We’re taking the safe and practical approach,” D’Ambrosio said.

NRC’s two resident inspectors assigned to Oyster Creek reported to the plant once they were notified of the Unusual Event.

“After observing activities in the control room, talking to plant staff and reviewing logs, they are satisfied the operators responded appropriately to the event,” he said. “We will be following up on the company’s root cause evaluation of what happened and any corrective actions.”

Federal, state and local government officials were notified, the news release said.

The Oyster Creek Generating Station is owned and operated by Exelon Corporation. Exelon is one of the largest electric utilities distributing electricity to approximately 5.4 million customers and natural gas to approximately 486,000 customers. The generating station is the oldest operating nuclear power plant in the country.