APS Ariz. Palo Verde 2 reactor exits outage

NEW YORK, Dec 16 (Reuters) - Arizona Public Service's 1,314-megawatt Unit 2 at the Palo Verde nuclear power station in Arizona exited an outage and ramped up to 68 percent power by early Tuesday, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a report.

On Monday, the unit was operating at 9 percent of capacity.

The unit shut by Nov. 22 to fix a hydrogen leak in the cooling system for the main electrical generator.

The 3,875 MW Palo Verde station is located in Wintersburg in Maricopa County, about 50 miles west of Phoenix. There are three units at the station, the 1,314 MW Units 1 and 2, both of which entered service in 1986, and the 1,247 MW Unit 3 (1988).

Unit 1 and 3 continued to operate at full power.

One MW powers about 400 homes in Arizona.

The company has said the output of Unit 3 would rise to about the same as Units 1 and 2 following a refueling outage completed in January 2008.

APS, a subsidiary of Pinnacle West Capital Corp (PNW.N), operates the station for its owners.

APS (29.1 percent), the Salt River Project (17.5 percent), Edison International's (EIX.N) Southern California Edison Co. subsidiary (15.8 percent), El Paso Electric Co (EE.N) (15.8 percent), PNM Resources Inc's (PNM.N) Public Service Co of New Mexico subsidiary (10.2 percent), Southern California Public Power Authority (5.9 percent) and the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (5.7 percent) own the plant.

Pinnacle West, of Phoenix, owns and operates about 10,000 MW of generating capacity, markets energy commodities, and transmits and distributes electricity to about 1.1 million customers in Arizona. (Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by John Picinich)