The Tennessee Valley Authority’s Watts Bar Nuclear Plant Unit 2 safely began a scheduled refueling and maintenance outage late Friday evening after generating more than 13.7 billion kilowatt-hours of carbon-free energy during 490 days of operation.

“Refueling and maintenance outages allow our highly skilled team members to make the improvements and upgrades to the unit’s systems and components to ensure Watts Bar Unit 2 continues to deliver safe and reliable carbon-free energy for 10 million people across the Tennessee Valley,” said Tony Williams, TVA Watts Bar Site Vice President. “As our region continues to grow at a rate several times the national average, it’s important that our longtime as well as our new residents of the region know they can count on Watts Bar and TVA to consistently generate the power needed for their homes and businesses.”

More than 10,000 work activities are planned, including the loading of 92 new nuclear fuel assemblies, performing inspections of reactor components and steam generators, maintenance of plant equipment, and installing unit enhancements.

Watts Bar Unit 2 is one of seven operational TVA nuclear reactors. TVA’s nuclear fleet is the third largest in the nation, safely and reliably providing more than 40% of all electricity TVA generates. Combined with other parts of TVA’s diverse generation system, nuclear power is the major contributor as the agency works to be net zero by 2050.