Unit 2 at the Susquehanna nuclear power plant near Berwick returned to service Saturday (7/4) after a five-day outage.

The unit automatically and safely shut down early Monday (6/29) when water backed up in a drain tank on the non-nuclear side of the plant, said Herbert D. Woodeshick, PP&L, Inc.'s special assistant to the president for Susquehanna.

"Water backed up in the drain tank for the moisture separator because too much had accumulated in the piping and did not drain away as expected. At the time, the unit was being returned to full power following a short maintenance outage," Woodeshick said.

The moisture separator dries the steam leaving the unit's high-pressure turbine before it's used in the low-pressure turbine, he explained. The water that is removed from the steam flows through the drain tank before being returned to the reactor.

Procedures have been revised to prevent a recurrence.

Susquehanna Unit 1 continued to produce electricity while Unit 2 was out of service. Even with the recent Unit 2 shutdowns, the Susquehanna plant expects to meet its electricity-production targets for the year.

The Susquehanna plant, jointly owned by PP&L, Inc., and Allegheny Electric Cooperative, Inc., is located about five miles northeast of Berwick along Route 11.