The Unit 1 reactor at the Susquehanna nuclear plant near Berwick resumed operation late Monday (3/17).

The unit was shut down manually on Feb. 25 when operators anticipated a loss of vacuum in the unit's main condenser.

Herbert D. Woodeshick, special assistant to the president for Pennsylvania Power & Light Co., said the cause of the problem was maintenance work in the vicinity of an electronics panel, which affected the panel and the system it controls.

"We fully understand the cause of this situation, and we have taken the appropriate steps to ensure that it does not happen again," Woodeshick said. "All plant systems performed safely and as designed during the shutdown."

During the outage, certain repairs and maintenance tasks were performed. This work can only be done when the unit is shut down.

Unit 2 at the Susquehanna plant was shut down Saturday (3/15) for a planned refueling outage.

The Susquehanna plant, located in Luzerne County about five miles north of Berwick, is owned jointly by PP&L and Allegheny Electric Cooperative Inc.