Diablo Canyon down for repairs
PG&E Corp., owner of California’s largest utility, began repairs Aug. 19 on the Diablo Canyon 2 reactor in California today after a transformer failure caused a fire and the unit was shut down Aug. 17.
“We have begun doing the repairs,” Sharon Gavin, a spokeswoman for PG&E, said. “We are replacing one transformer and conducting tests on others.” The outage will be “brief,” according to the spokeswoman.
The fire resulted in “considerable damage,’’ the spokeswoman said. The reactor shut down automatically.
The San Francisco-based company declared an “unusual event” at the 1,150-megawatt unit near San Luis Obispo.
Two reactors are at the site with a combined capacity of about 2,300 megawatts, enough power for 1.84 million average U.S. homes, based on an Energy Department estimate. Diablo Canyon 1 was operating at full capacity Aug. 19, according to a report from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
