Arizona Palo Verde 3 nuke climbs to 60 pct power

LOS ANGELES, May 13 (Reuters)

The 1,270-megawatt Unit 3 at the Palo Verde nuclear plant in Arizona was ramping back up to full power on Thursday, the plant's operator, utility Arizona Public Service, said.

The spokeswoman for the company said the unit was operating at about 60 percent power and should be back at full power around the weekend.

The unit had been holding at 40 percent power while a small leak in a pipe in the circulating water system was repaired. There had been concerns the unit might have to be taken off-line, but that did not prove necessary.

"They were able to do it (repair the leak) at 40 percent," the spokeswoman said.

The adjacent 1,270-MW Unit 1 continues to exit a maintenance and refueling outage that began on April 5. The spokeswoman said Unit 1 had risen to about 66 percent power Thursday morning, up from 20 percent a day earlier.

The Palo Verde station is in Wintersburg, Arizona, about 50 miles west of Phoenix.

Arizona Public Service, a unit of Pinnacle West Capital Corp. , has a 29.1 percent interest in the plant. Other owners include Salt River Project (17.5 percent); Edison International's Southern California Edison Co. (15.8 percent); El Paso Electric Co. (15.8 percent); PNM Resources Inc.'s Public Service Co. of New Mexico (10.2 percent); Southern California Public Power Authority (5.9 percent); and the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (5.7 percent).

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