Dominion Conn. Millstone 2 reactor back at full power

NEW YORK, July 3 (Reuters) - Dominion Resources Inc's (D.N) 882-megawatt Unit 2 at the Millstone nuclear power station in Connecticut returned to full power by early Thursday, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a report.

The unit was operating at 70 percent of capacity early Wednesday after exiting an outage.

The company shut the unit on June 28 after seeing some oscillations in the feedwater heater system during valve testing.

The 2,037 MW Millstone station is located in Waterford in New London County, about 50 miles southeast of Hartford. There are two reactors at the station: Unit 2 and the 1,155 MW Unit 3, which entered service in 1975 and 1986, respectively.

Unit 3 continued to operate at full power.

One MW powers about 1,000 homes in Connecticut.

In 2005, the NRC renewed the plant's original 40-year operating licenses for the units for another 20 years until 2035 and 2045.

Dominion, which wholly owns Unit 2, operates the Millstone station for its owners.

Dominion (93.47 percent), Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric (4.8 percent) and Central Vermont Public Service Corp (CV.N) (1.73 percent) own Unit 3.

Dominion, of Richmond, Virginia, owns and operates more than 26,000 MW of generating capacity, markets energy commodities, and transmits and distributes electricity and natural gas to customers in 11 states. (Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by John Picinich)