Duke N.C. McGuire 2 reactor starts to exit refuel

NEW YORK, April 17 (Reuters) - Duke Energy Corp's (DUK.N) 1,100-megawatt Unit 2 at the McGuire nuclear power station in North Carolina started to exit a refueling and maintenance outage and ramped up to 15 percent power by early Thursday, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a report.

The unit shut by March 3.

The unit last shut for refueling from Sept. 16-Nov. 13, 2006. It is on an 18-month refueling cycle.

The 2,200 MW McGuire station is located in Cornelius in Mecklenburg County, about 20 miles north of Charlotte. There are two 1,100 MW Units 1 and 2 at the station, which entered service in 1981 and 1984.

Unit 1 continued to operate at full power.

One MW powers about 700 homes in North Carolina.

In December 2003, the NRC renewed the plant's original 40-year operating licenses for both units for another 20 years until 2041 and 2043.

In February 2008, the NRC accepted Duke's application to build two of Toshiba Corp's Westinghouse 1,100 MW AP1000 reactors at the proposed William States Lee III nuclear power station in Cherokee County, South Carolina near the company's McGuire and Catawba nuclear plants.

Using an industry estimate of $4,000 per kilowatt, the new reactors would cost about $4.4 billion each.

Duke, of Charlotte, North Carolina, owns and operates more than 40,000 MW of generating capacity in North America and Latin America, markets energy commodities, and transmits and distributes electricity and natural gas to about 4 million U.S. customers in the Carolinas and the Midwest. (Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by John Picinich)