HARTSVILLE, S.C., Oct. 29, 2002 — CP&L’s H.B. Robinson Nuclear Plant, near Hartsville, S.C., has completed a series of examinations of the entire reactor pressure vessel head and found no indications of control rod drive mechanism cracking and no corrosion of the head itself.
The Robinson Plant completed a qualified, 100 percent bare metal visual inspection of the top of the head, and 100 percent non-destructive examination (NDE) from under the head. The NDE included eddy-current testing of each penetration, and ultrasonic testing of selected penetrations.
The results of these examinations revealed no indications of problems and indicated that the reactor head for Robinson’s nuclear unit is in excellent overall condition. The nuclear unit will be returned to service at the conclusion of the current refueling outage (RO-21).
Progress Energy, headquartered in Raleigh, N.C., is a Fortune 250 diversified energy company with more than 21,800 megawatts of generation capacity and $8 billion in annual revenues.
The company’s holdings include two electric utilities (CP&L and Florida Power) serving more than 2.9 million customers across the Carolinas and Florida. Progress Energy also includes non-regulated operations (Progress Ventures) covering merchant generation, energy marketing and trading, fuel extraction (Progress Fuels), rail services (Progress Rail) and broadband capacity (Progress Telecom). For more information about Progress Energy, visit the company’s Web site at https://www.progress-energy.com.
