Restarted TMI Unit Can’t Reach 100% of Power

The Three Mile Island Unit 1 reactor, restarted 6 1/2 years after an accident damaged an adjacent unit, can achieve no more than 88% power because of deposits in its steam generators, the plant’s operator said Friday.

It was the first time GPU Nuclear Corp. had said it could not achieve 100% power since the plant was restarted Oct. 3. “We didn’t know before now,” TMI spokeswoman Lisa Robinson said.

Operators achieved the 88% power level at 9 a.m., from a previous high of 75% of maximum reached at 4:16 a.m., Robinson said. GPU Nuclear hopes the reactor will operate at 100% capacity in the future, she said.

“It’s a temporary limitation,” she said, but she added that plant engineers do not know how or when they will be able to remove the deposits.

At the new level, the reactor was producing 750 megawatts, enough to supply power to about 426,000 households, said Bruce McLean, spokesman for Metropolitan Edison Co., partial owner of the nuclear plant in Middletown, 10 miles southeast of Harrisburg.

The Unit 1 output had been increased in stages since it was restarted. It had been shut down since 1979, when Unit 2 of the plant was damaged in the nation’s worst commercial nuclear accident. Unit 2 remains out of service.