FirstEnergy announced that it has recently signed a letter of intent to purchase a reactor pressure vessel (RPV) head from Consumers Energy’s abandoned Midland project to replace Davis Besse’s damaged RPV head. The NRC told FirstEnergy that replacement of the head would be a “cleaner path” to restarting the unit than repair of the RPV head.
Richard Wilkins, FirstEnergy’s spokesman at Davis Besse, said: “Repair was the number one option,” and it would continue to be so until the company changed that policy. He noted that there would be technical issues involved that the NRC would have to address for either the repair or replacement options.
FirstEnergy would have to take the RPV head on an “as is, where is” condition, said Consumers spokesman Charles MacInnes. He said it would be FirstEnergy’s responsibility to remove the head and installing it at Davis Besse.
