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ROSEMEAD, Calif., June 7, 2012 – Edison International Chairman and CEO Ted Craver, in meetings with Southern California media representatives Thursday, said that safety, not timelines, would determine when the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) restarts. 

Due to safety inspections and testing that Southern California Edison (SCE) is performing, the company expects to deliver a plan to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) by the end of July regarding the operation of SONGS Unit 2. The NRC, which must approve the restart of SONGS, will then need time to respond. As a result, SCE estimates SONGS likely will remain off line through August. A plan for Unit 3 is expected to take longer to develop.

SONGS Units 2 and 3 Status

SCE engineers and third-party experts are currently working on a plan to address the NRC Confirmatory Action Letter (CAL) that outlines actions SCE must complete at SONGS before seeking permission from the NRC to restart either Unit 2 or Unit 3.
 
As the actions for each unit are completed, SCE will submit its responses to the NRC. There is no deadline for submitting the CAL responses. A series of regularly scheduled inspections and equipment testing will continue as planned over the next couple of months. As a result of some of these tests, steam will be visible. Also, the NRC has set June 18 as the date of a public meeting to discuss the Augmented Inspection Team findings. 

Steam Generator Replacement Process

SCE followed the NRC’s detailed guidance in procuring its replacement steam generators, meeting the NRC’s technical specifications outlined in Title 10, Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), Section 50.59.

Both SONGS units are currently safely shut down for inspections, analysis and testing. Unit 2 was taken out of service Jan. 9 for a planned outage. Unit 3 was safely taken off line Jan. 31 after station operators detected a leak in a steam generator tube.

About Southern California Edison

An Edison International (NYSE:EIX) company, Southern California Edison is one of the nation’s largest electric utilities, serving a population of nearly 14 million via 4.9 million customer accounts in a 50,000-square-mile service area within Central, Coastal and Southern California.

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Southern California Edison Provides An Update on the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station