SPRING CITY, Tenn. (AP) — Federal regulators have voted to grant an operating license for the Unit 2 reactor at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Watts Bar nuclear plant as long as regulatory requirements are met.
The Chattanooga Times Free Press (http://bit.ly/1HOwuFv) reports the critical step by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will keep the Watts Bar Unit 2 project on schedule to become the nation's first new nuclear generating plant of the 21st century. The Tennessee Valley Authority has said it plans to complete the reactor by December 2015.
The project at the Watts Bar plant near Spring City, Tennessee, will add 1,100 megawatts of electricity, providing enough energy for approximately 650,000 homes.
TVA is the nation's largest public utility, supplying power to about 9 million people in Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.