US Nuclear Regulatory Commission public affairs officer Neil Sheehan was quoted by WRVO Public Media as saying that the power supply loss impacted the flow of cooling to both of the plant’s reactor recirculation pumps, prompting the operators to manually scram the reactor.
"And that means they inserted all the control rods, halted the fissioning process and, therefore, the plant was no longer heating up water and generating electricity," Sheehan added.
The plant is currently in "hot" shutdown, which means both the reactor and reactor coolant system remain heated and pressurized, and hence can be restarted quickly.
The two NRC resident inspectors assigned to the power plant will now review the event, including troubleshooting on the loss of the power supply and any repairs.
Meanwhile, unnamed CENG officials were quoted by Syracuse.com as saying that the shutdown is not expected to impact electrical service to homes and businesses in the region.
The two-unit Nine Mile Point plant generates 1,360MW at full power, which is enough for about 1.4 million average households.
