UPDATE 1-Dominion shuts Va. Surry 2 reactor for refuel

(Updates with company comment)

NEW YORK, Nov 2 (Reuters) - Dominion Resources Inc (D.N) shut the 799-megawatt Unit 2 at the Surry nuclear power station in Virginia for planned refueling on Sunday, a spokesman for the company said Monday.

That ended an almost 529-day run for the unit, which was a unit record for days on line. It was also the third consecutive breaker-to-breaker run for the unit, the spokesman said in an email.

During the outage, the company will replace a third of the fuel, repair the residual heat removal heat exchanger and nozzles and inspect and clean all three steam generators, among other things.

The spokesman could not say when the unit would return due in part to competitive reasons. Electricity traders guessed it would return in about a month.

The unit last shut from about April 27 to May 21, 2008. It is on an 18-month refueling cycle.

The 1,598-MW Surry station is located in Gravel Neck in Surry County about 45 miles (72 km) northwest of Norfolk, Virginia. There are two 799-MW Units 1 and 2 at the station, which entered service in 1972 and 1973. The NRC renewed the original 40-year operating licenses in 2003 for both units for another 20 years until 2032 and 2033.

Unit 1 continued to operate at full power.

One MW powers about 800 homes in Virginia.

Dominion, of Richmond, Virginia, owns and operates about 27,000 MW of generating capacity, markets energy commodities and transmits and distributes electricity to 2.4 million customers in Virginia and North Carolina. (Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)