APS Ariz. Palo Verde 3 reactor starts to exit refuel

NEW YORK, May 28 (Reuters) - Arizona Public Service's 1,247-megawatt Unit 3 at the Palo Verde nuclear power station in Arizona started to exit a refueling outage and ramped up to 12 percent power by early Thursday, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a report.

The unit last shut from about Sept. 29, 2007-Jan. 22, 2008. It is on an 18-month refueling cycle.

The 3,872 MW Palo Verde station is located in Wintersburg in Maricopa County, about 50 miles west of Phoenix. There are three units at the station, the 1,311 MW Unit 1, which entered service in 1986, the 1,314 MW Unit 2 (1986) and the 1,247 MW Unit 3 (1988).

One MW powers about 400 homes in Arizona.

Units 1 and 2 continued to operate at full power.

In December 2008, APS filed with the NRC for a 20-year extension of the units' original 40-year operating licenses.

It usually takes the NRC about 22 months (April 2011) to make a decision without a hearing and about 30 months (Oct. 2011) with a hearing.

APS, a subsidiary of Pinnacle West Capital Corp (PNW.N), operates the station for its owners.

APS (29.1 percent), the Salt River Project (17.5 percent), Edison International's EIX .N Southern California Edison Co. subsidiary (15.8 percent), El Paso Electric Co (EE.N) (15.8 percent), PNM Resources Inc's (PNM.N) Public Service Co of New Mexico subsidiary (10.2 percent), Southern California Public Power Authority (5.9 percent) and the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (5.7 percent) own the plant.

Pinnacle West, of Phoenix, owns and operates about 10,000 MW of generating capacity, markets energy commodities, and transmits and distributes electricity to about 1.1 million customers in Arizona. (Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by John Picinich)