NRC NEWS

U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

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No. 09-105 June 8, 2009

NRC ISSUES FINAL SAFETY EVALUATION REPORT FOR 

BEAVER VALLEY NUCLEAR POWER PLANT LICENSE RENEWAL

 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued its final safety evaluation report (SER) 

for the proposed renewal of the operating licenses for the Beaver Valley Power Station, Units 1 

and 2, and concluded that there are no open items that would preclude license renewal for an 

additional 20 years of operation. 

 The report documents the results of the NRC staff’s review of the license renewal 

application and site audits of the plant’s aging management programs to address the safety of 

plant operations during the period of extended operation. Overall, the results show that the 

applicant has identified actions that have been or will be taken to manage the effects of aging in 

the appropriate safety systems, structures and components of the plant and that their functions 

will be maintained during the period of extended operation. 

 Beaver Valley Power Station units are pressurized-water reactors, located in Shippingport 

(Beaver County), Pa., and operated by FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co. The current operating 

licenses for Beaver Valley, Units 1 and 2 are due to expire on Jan. 29, 2016, and May 27, 2027, 

respectively. On Aug. 28, 2007, FirstEnergy submitted an application for a 20-year license 

extension for each unit. 

 In a letter dated June 8, Brian Holian, director of the Office of Nuclear Reactor 

Regulation’s Division of License Renewal, provided FirstEnergy with the SER. The SER will be 

available on the NRC’s Web site at: 

http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applications/bvalley.html. Issuing the 

final SER is a significant milestone in a license renewal review. 

 The SER and the license renewal application have also been provided to the NRC’s 

Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS), an independent body of experts that 

advises the NRC on reactor safety matters. The ACRS will discuss the SER during its July 

meeting, details of which will be posted on the NRC Web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/readingrm/doc-collections/acrs/agenda/2009/. The ACRS will later issue a report discussing the results 

of its review. 
 A copy of the letter and the Safety Evaluation Report will be available in the NRC’s 

Agencywide Documents Access and Management Systems (ADAMS) under accession number 

ML091550506 and ML091600216, respectively. ADAMS is accessible via the agency’s Web 

site at: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. Help in using ADAMS is available by 

contacting the NRC’s Public Document Room at 1-800-397-4209 or 301-415-4737, or by e-mail 

at: PDR.Resource@NRC.GOV. 

The Beaver Valley license renewal application is available at: 

http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applications/bvalley.html. The 

application is also available for review at the Beaver Area Memorial Library, 100 College Ave. 

in Beaver, Pa.; and at the Beaver County Library System, 1 Campus Drive in Monaca, Pa., 

Additional information about the license renewal process is available at: 

http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal.html. 

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