PSEG NJ Salem 2 reactor starts to exit outage

NEW YORK, Nov 11 (Reuters) - Public Service Enterprise Group Inc's (PEG.N) 1,130-megawatt Unit 2 at the Salem nuclear power station in New Jersey started to exit a refueling outage and ramped up to 5 percent by early Wednesday, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a report.

The unit shut by Oct. 14.

The unit last shut for refueling from about March 12 to May 9, 2008. The unit is on an 18-month refueling cycle.

The 3,551-MW Salem/Hope Creek station is located along the Delaware River in Salem about 40 miles (60 km) south of Philadelphia. There are three reactors at the station, the 1,174-MW Salem 1, which entered service in 1977, 1,130-MW Salem 2 (1981) and the 1,209-MW Hope Creek (1986), and the 38-MW Salem 3 oil-fired turbine.

Salem 1 and Hope Creek continued to operate at full power.

One MW powers about 800 homes in New Jersey.

PSEG operates the station and owns all of Hope Creek and about 57 percent of Salem. Exelon Corp (EXC.N) owns the remaining 43 percent of Salem.

In 2007, PSEG said it planned to spend $50 million between 2007 and 2011 to explore the possible construction of a new reactor at the site. The company planned to file in the spring of 2010 with the NRC to build the new reactor.

In August 2009 PSEG filed with the NRC for 20-year extensions of the original 40-year operating licenses for Hope Creek and both Salem units. The NRC has said it takes about 22 months to make a decision on a license renewal without a hearing and 30 months with a hearing.

PSEG, of Newark, New Jersey, owns and operates more than 16,500 MW of generating capacity, markets energy commodities, and transmits and distributes electricity to 2.1 million customers and natural gas to 1.7 million customers in New Jersey and another 2.9 million customers around the world.

Exelon, of Chicago, owns and operates more than 38,000 MW of generating capacity, markets energy commodities, and transmits and distributes electricity to about 5.4 million customers in northern Illinois and southeast Pennsylvania and natural gas to about 480,000 in the Philadelphia area. (Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)