Energy Northwest Wash Columbia reactor up to 60 pct

NEW YORK, Aug 25 (Reuters) - The 1,131-megawatt Columbia Generating Station nuclear unit in Washington State was at 60 percent power early Monday after exiting a brief outage, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in its power reactor status report.

The unit, in Richland, about 145 miles southwest of Spokane, shut late last week during checks for leaks on its reactor feedwater turbines. The unit had been reduced to allow the checks when low oil pressure caused the full reactor to shut automatically, a company spokesman said previously.

One MW powers about 800 homes in Washington State.

Energy Northwest told the NRC it would file in January 2010 for a 20-year extension of the original 40-year operating license for the reactor.

It usually takes the NRC about 22 months to make a decision on a license renewal without a hearing and about 30 months with a hearing.

Energy Northwest, of Richland, Washington, is a joint operating company comprising 22 member utilities that owns and operates about 1,200 MW of generating capacity, which it supplies to the utilities.

The federal Bonneville Power Administration markets the power from the reactor. (Reporting by Eileen Moustakis; Editing by John Picinich)