STOKES COUNTY -- Duke Energy shut down various power plant units including two at the Belews Creek Steam Station in Stokes County this spring to perform yearly maintenance.
It’s part of the company’s “outage season.”
“In the spring and in the fall when demand is low, meaning, there's not as much demand for electricity, we take those opportunities to shut down a small percentage of our units,” Duke Energy representative Paul Draovitch said.
The company is spending $21 million and has about 400 extra workers to clean and service the equipment at the Belews Creek coal-fired generating facility. Unit two is already done and operational while unit one is about to transition to start up and testing.
“Some of what we've done is replace equipment that’s at its end of life,” Draovitch said. “Other work that we've done, we have pieces of equipment that are talking to us and say 'Hey, I need a little bit of work done on me so I can operate reliably' and we take this time to do that."
As hot weather approaches Duke Energy wants to be prepared to serve customers during extreme conditions.
“We go in to perform maintenance on pieces of equipment in that unit to make sure it operates safely and reliably,” Draotich said. “In no way does it affect our ability to serve customers. The grid continues to remain in service.”
Duke Energy expects to have unit one running by the end of the week. Belews Creek is one of Duke Energy's largest coal-burning power plants.