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Northwest's Only Commercial Nuclear Power Plant Back Online. What Happened? by Annette Cary Tri-City Herald, February 18, 2026

The Pacific Northwest's only commercial nuclear power plant was reconnected to the electric grid Tuesday afternoon and by 8 a.m. Wednesday morning had ramped up to 85% of full power.

Energy Northwest's Columbia Generating Station was expected to be back at full power by the end of the day.

The plant about 20 miles north of Richland in Eastern Washington was back online just as temperatures dipped across the state. It can supply enough electricity around the clock to power about 1 million homes.

However, the unexpected shutdown of the plant for six days starting Thursday, Feb. 12, caused no power issues for consumers, said officials.

The Bonneville Power Administration, which markets the plant's power, said it leaned into its hydropower capacity and flexibility to meet electricity demand.

Energy Northwest workers shut down the plant at 2:49 a.m. Feb. 12 after both its recirculation pumps shut down. If they had not shut down the plant, it would have detected the issue and automatically shut down, according to Energy Northwest.

The plant remained offline in a safe and stable condition while Energy Northwest investigated and repaired a mechanical problem, said officials.

Workers found the issue in a small component, an electronic filter on a system that provides cooling to the system that controls recirculation pumps.

The recirculation pumps push water into the reactor core. The water boils as fuel rods undergo controlled chain reactions and release heat. The steam produced then spins a turbine connected to a generator to produce electricity.

After the needed repair was made, workers performed thorough testing and verified the performance of equipment.

"From start to finish, we kept safety and operational excellence at the forefront," said Dawn Sileo, Energy Northwest chief nuclear officer.

The Columbia Generating Station, a 1,207-megawatt electric nuclear power plant, is the third largest electricity generator in Washington state, behind the Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams.

Before last week's shutdown, the nuclear power plant had been online for 227 days after returning to service after a May 2025 outage to refuel.

The last time it stopped producing power -- that was not related to a refueling outage and restart -- was December 2021. That was considered a planned outage because after an issue was observed with balance weights on each end of a turbine installed earlier that year, Energy Northwest was able to coordinate a time with BPA when the impact of a shutdown could be minimized.

The last unplanned outage was in May 2018 when one of the plant's main power transformers automatically disconnected from the transmission system following a grid disturbance. That caused the main generator also to trip and the plant to stop operating.

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Energy Secretary Agrees Tri-Cities Assets 'Irresistible' for Growing a Clean Energy Hub by Annette Cary, Tri-City Herald, 8/14/22