Exelon Ill. Dresden 3 reactor exits outage

NEW YORK, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Exelon Corp's (EXC.N) 867-megawatt Unit 3 at the Dresden nuclear power station in Illinois exited an outage and ramped up to 18 percent power by early Monday, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a report.

The unit shut on Nov. 6 to fix a valve that could not be repaired while the turbine was running. The turbine and valve are on the non nuclear side of the plant.

The 1,734-MW Dresden station is located in Morris in Grundy County about 60 miles southeast of Chicago. The plant's two 867-MW Units 2 and 3 entered service in 1970 and 1971.

The NRC renewed the unit's original 40-year operating licenses in 2004 for another 20 years until 2029 and 2031.

Unit 2 shut by Nov. 2 for planned refueling and will likely return in early December.

Unit 2 last shut for refueling from about Oct. 27 to Nov. 20, 2007. The unit is on a 24-month refueling cycle.

One MW powers about 800 homes in Illinois.

Exelon, of Chicago, owns and operates more than 38,000 MW of generating capacity, markets energy commodities, and transmits and distributes electricity to 5.4 million customers and natural gas to 480,000 customers in Illinois and Pennsylvania. (Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by John Picinich)