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FirstEnergy Nuclear Fleet Achieves Improved Safety Performance and Reliable Operating Record in 2012

^{Published on 2013-02-05 12:45:38 - Market Wire}
 

FirstEnergy Nuclear Fleet Achieves Improved Safety Performance and Reliable Operating Record in... -- AKRON, Ohio, Feb. 5, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

AKRON, Ohio, Feb. 5, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC) announced today that its fleet of power plants – the Beaver Valley Power Station in Shippingport, Pa; Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station in Oak Harbor, Ohio; and Perry Nuclear Power Plant in Perry, Ohio– achieved improved personal safety performance in 2012, with five federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recordable incidents.  This represents FENOC's second best OSHA performance since 1999.

Collectively, the sites have worked more than 13.3 million consecutive hours without a lost time accident.  Beaver Valley employees have worked more than 6.9 million hours, Davis-Besse employees more than 5.3 million hours and Perry employees more than 1.1 million hours without a lost time accident. 

In addition, the FENOC fleet operated safely and reliably in 2012, generating 31.8 million megawatt-hours (Mwh) net of carbon-free electricity.  Typically, each megawatt produced by a power plant can supply approximately 1,000 homes with electricity.

Output in 2012 was 7.2 million Mwh for Beaver Valley Unit 1; 7 million Mwh for Beaver Valley Unit 2; 7.1 million Mwh for Davis-Besse; and 10.5 million Mwh for Perry.  During its fall 2012 refueling outage, Beaver Valley Unit 2 installed new low pressure turbines, adding approximately 29 megawatts of additional capacity to the unit by improving efficiency.  Both Beaver Valley Unit 1 and Perry are expected to undertake similar turbine upgrades during their next refueling outages.

"During 2012, FENOC continued to achieve safe, reliable and cost-effective performance as a fleet," said FENOC President and Chief Nuclear Officer Pete Sena .  "We will continue to pursue high operational standards as FENOC strives for industry-leading performance in 2013."

FENOC accomplished a fleet forced loss rate of .50 percent in 2012, its best annual fleet performance since the forced loss rate indicator was established in 2005.  Forced loss rate measures the percentage of time a plant is not producing electricity due to an unplanned power reduction or outage. 

Beaver Valley also turned in industry-leading radiological control performance.  Collective online dose, which reflects controlled radiation exposure to workers, was limited to 448 millirem (mrem) for Unit 2 and 460 mrem for Unit 1, the best performance in the U.S. nuclear industry in 2012.

In addition, in 2012, each of the three FENOC stations completed construction of a state-of-the-art Emergency Operations Facility near the plant.  The new Emergency Operations Facilities reflect FENOC's commitment to protecting public health and safety by preparing the site to support timely, efficient communications with emergency responders in the unlikely event of an emergency. 

FirstEnergy (NYSE: FE) is a diversified energy company headquartered in Akron, Ohio.  Its FENOC subsidiary operates the Beaver Valley Power Station in Shippingport, Pa., the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station in Oak Harbor, Ohio, and the Perry Nuclear Power Plant in Perry, Ohio.

Forward-Looking Statements: This news release includes forward-looking statements based on information currently available to management. Such statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties. These statements include declarations regarding management's intents, beliefs and current expectations. These statements typically contain, but are not limited to, the terms "anticipate," "potential," "expect," "believe," "estimate" and similar words. Forward-looking statements involve estimates, assumptions, known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially due to: the speed and nature of increased competition in the electric utility industry, the impact of the regulatory process on the pending matters before FERC and in the various states in which we do business including, but not limited to, matters related to rates, the uncertainties of various cost recovery and cost allocation issues resulting from ATSI's realignment into PJM, economic or weather conditions affecting future sales and margins, regulatory outcomes associated with Hurricane Sandy, changing energy, capacity and commodity market prices and availability, financial derivative reforms that could increase our liquidity needs and collateral costs, the continued ability of our regulated utilities to collect transition and other costs, operation and maintenance costs being higher than anticipated, other legislative and regulatory changes, and revised environmental requirements, including possible GHG emission, water intake and coal combustion residual regulations, the potential impacts of CAIR, and any laws, rules or regulations that ultimately replace CAIR, and the effects of the EPA's MATS rules, the uncertainty of the timing and amounts of the capital expenditures that may arise in connection with any litigation, including NSR litigation or potential regulatory initiatives or rulemakings (including that such expenditures could result in our decision to deactivate or idle certain generating units), the uncertainties associated with our plans to deactivate our older unscrubbed regulated and competitive fossil units and our plans to change the operations of certain fossil plants, including the impact on vendor commitments, and the timing of those deactivations and operational changes as they relate to, among other things, the RMR arrangements and the reliability of the transmission grid, issues that could result from the NRC's review of the indications of cracking in the Davis Besse Plant shield building, adverse regulatory or legal decisions and outcomes with respect to our nuclear operations (including, but not limited to the revocation or non-renewal of necessary licenses, approvals or operating permits by the NRC or as a result of the incident at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant), adverse legal decisions and outcomes related to ME's and PN's ability to recover certain transmission costs through their transmission service charge riders, the continuing availability of generating units, changes in their operational status and any related impacts on vendor commitments, replacement power costs being higher than anticipated or inadequately hedged, the ability to comply with applicable state and federal reliability standards and energy efficiency mandates, changes in customers' demand for power, including but not limited to, changes resulting from the implementation of state and federal energy efficiency mandates, the ability to accomplish or realize anticipated benefits from strategic goals, our ability to improve electric commodity margins and the impact of, among other factors, the increased cost of fuel and fuel transportation on such margins, the ability to experience growth in the Regulated Distribution and Competitive Energy Services segments, changing market conditions that could affect the measurement of liabilities and the value of assets held in our NDTs, pension trusts and other trust funds, and cause us and our subsidiaries to make additional contributions sooner, or in amounts that are larger than currently anticipated, the impact of changes to material accounting policies, the ability to access the public securities and other capital and credit markets in accordance with our financing plans, the cost of such capital and overall condition of the capital and credit markets affecting us and our subsidiaries, changes in general economic conditions affecting us and our subsidiaries, interest rates and any actions taken by credit rating agencies that could negatively affect us and our subsidiaries' access to financing, increased costs thereof, and increase requirements to post additional collateral to support outstanding commodity positions, LOCs and other financial guarantees, the state of the national and regional economy and its impact on our major industrial and commercial customers, issues concerning the soundness of domestic and foreign financial institutions and counterparties with which we do business, the risks and other factors discussed from time to time in our SEC filings, and other similar factors. The foregoing review of factors should not be construed as exhaustive. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for management to predict all such factors, nor assess the impact of any such factor on FirstEnergy's business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. FirstEnergy expressly disclaims any current intention to update, except as required by law, any forward-looking statements contained herein as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

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SOURCE FirstEnergy Corp.