Quad Cities Nuclear Generating Station

Quad Cities is a two-unit nuclear power plant located near Cordova, Illinois, USA on the Mississippi River. The two General Electric boiling water reactors give the plant a total electric capacity of approximately 1,700 MW. It is named for the nearby cities known as the Quad Cities: Bettendorf and Davenport, Iowa, and Moline and Rock Island, Illinois. The Quad Cities plant is owned and operated by Exelon Corporation.

Unit 1 Nuclear system supplied by General Electric Company (U.S.)
Capacity Net MW(e)	Generation in 2003 Megawatt-hours	Capacity Factor	Type	On-line Date	License Expiration Date
855	5,709,520	90.6 %	BWR	Dec. 14, 1972	Dec. 14, 2012
Unit 2 Nuclear system supplied by General Electric Company (U.S.)
Capacity Net MW(e)	Generation in 2003 Megawatt-hours	Capacity Factor	Type	On-line Date	License Expiration Date
855	6,956,073	92.7 %	BWR	Dec. 14, 1972	Dec. 14, 2012

BWR= Boiling Water Reactor

Note: Unit 1 was uprated in capacity from 762 net MW(e).

[edit] Problems

March 5, 2002 – During an extended power uprate test designed to extend the power efficiency of aging BWR reactors the Quad Cities Nuclear Generating Station unit 2 (Illinois) began to shake itself apart. On March 29 the plant was manually shut down due to high vibrations causing leaks in the main turbine control system. Unit 2 had a restart on April 2, but vibration broke a main steam pipe drain line. The line was repaired and the restart resumed but by June 7 the main steam lines were showing unexplained aberrations. On June 18 it became obvious that the power uprate was causing damage so the power was reduced but the damage had been done. Once again the plant was taken offline for repairs on July 11. The problem was traced to a hole in the steam dryer - it was repaired and braced, then unit 2 was restarted on July 21, 2002. The steam dryer failed again on May 28, 2003 with a ¾ in x 9 ft (6 mm by 2.7 m) crack. These two failures have not deterred the NRC from continuning the EPU program and offering these extended power uprates to the other BWR . [1][2]