Southern Ala. Farley 1 reactor up to 98 pct power

NEW YORK, Aug 1 (Reuters) - Southern Co's (SO.N) 851-megawatt Unit 1 at the Farley nuclear power station in Alabama ramped up to 98 percent power by early Friday, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a report.

On Thursday, the unit was operating at 30 percent of capacity after exiting an outage earlier in the week.

The unit shut by July 22 due to the loss of two emergency diesel generators that would be used in the event of an off-site power outage.

The 1,711 MW Farley station is located in Dothan in Houston County, about 95 miles northwest of Tallahassee, Florida. There are two units at the station, Unit 1 and the 860 MW Unit 2, which entered service in 1977 and 1981.

Unit 2 continued to operate at full power.

One MW powers about 500 homes in Alabama.

In March 2005, the NRC renewed the plant's original 40-year operating licenses for both units for another 20 years until 2037 and 2041.

Southern, of Atlanta, owns and operates more than 42,000 MW of generating capacity, markets energy commodities, and transmits and distributes electricity to nearly 4.4 million customers in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida. (Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by John Picinich)