Watts Bar Nuclear Plant
| Watts Bar Nuclear Plant | |
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Watts Bar Nuclear Power Plant Units 1 & 2 cooling towers and containment buildings.
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 Location of Watts Bar Nuclear Generating Station
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| Country | United States |
| Location | Rhea County, near Spring City, Tennessee |
| Coordinates | 35°36′10″N 84°47′22″W / 35.60278°N 84.78944°WCoordinates: 35°36′10″N 84°47′22″W / 35.60278°N 84.78944°W |
| Status | Operational |
| Construction began | 1973 |
| Commission date | Unit 1: May 27, 1996 Unit 2: October 3, 2016 |
| Construction cost | More than $12 billion |
| Operator(s) | Tennessee Valley Authority |
| Nuclear power station | |
| Reactor type | PWR |
| Reactor supplier | Westinghouse |
| Cooling source | Tennessee River |
| Cooling towers | 2 × Natural Draft |
| Power generation | |
| Units operational | 1 × 1121 MW 1 × 1218 MW |
| Nameplate capacity | 2339 MW |
| Capacity factor | 92.1% (Unit 1, 2013–2015) |
| Annual net output | 11,248 GW·h (2016) |
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Website www.tva.gov/power/nuclear/wattsbar |
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The Watts Bar Nuclear Power Plant is a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) nuclear reactor pair used for electric power generation. It is located on a 1,770-acre (7.2 km²) site in Rhea County, Tennessee, near Spring City, between the cities of Chattanooga and Knoxville. Watts Bar supplies enough electricity for about 1,200,000 households in the Tennessee Valley.
The plant, construction of which began in 1973, has two Westinghouse pressurized water reactor units: Unit 1, completed in 1996, and Unit 2, completed in 2015. Unit 1 has a winter net dependable generating capacity of 1,167 megawatts. Unit 2 has a capacity of 1,165 megawatts. Unit 2 is the most recent civilian reactor to come on-line in the United States and the first new reactor to enter service in the United States after a 20-year hiatus.
Unit 2 was 80% complete when construction on both units was stopped in the 1980s due in part to a projected decrease in power demand. In 2007, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Board approved completion of Unit 2 on August 1, and construction resumed on October 15. The project was expected to cost $2.5 billion, and employ around 2,300 contractor workers. Once finished, it was expected to employ 250 people in permanent jobs. The final cost of the plant is estimated at $6.1 billion.
A year after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami and subsequent Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued 9 orders to improve safety at domestic plants. Two applied to Watts Bar Unit 2 and required design modifications: "Mitigation Strategies Order" and "Spent Fuel Pool Instrumentation Order". In February 2012, TVA said the design modifications to Watts Bar 2 were partially responsible for the project running over budget and behind schedule. The second unit cost a total of $4.7 billion bringing the total cost of the plant to more than $12 billion.
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