Station’s Performance Rated as Industry Best

St. Francisville, La. – River Bend Station reached an unprecedented milestone recently, when it achieved a perfect 100 index score based on criteria established by the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations. The perfect score places River Bend among only a few nuclear plants in the nation to achieve this rating.

“This is an historic day at River Bend Station,” Site Vice President Mike Perito told employees during an all-hands meeting held to recognize their record performance and to keep the momentum going strong through the refueling outage and beyond.”

River Bend recently entered a scheduled outage to refuel and perform maintenance procedures.

“Our goal is to cap off this remarkable run with a safe, well-executed refueling outage,” said Perito. “Our performance over the last cycle shows the potential of the River Bend team. It’s proof that employees are capable of not only reaching 100 on the INPO index, but also sustaining this level of performance for the long-term.”

The milestone is even more impressive considering that just two years ago, River Bend was on the opposite end of the performance scale. In 2008, the station’s INPO index fell to 46 – one of the lowest scores in the industry. The drop prompted leaders from Entergy and River Bend to channel their attention and resources into an aggressive turnaround plan.

The change began at the top. An experienced leadership team gave employees the tools to tackle problems and plan more effectively for near- and long-term goals.
The company also dedicated millions of dollars to updating, repairing and more properly maintaining plant equipment.

The first focus was to improve equipment reliability. Equipment failures were impacting plant reliability, not to mention adversely effecting all performance indicators.

By the start of the station’s last refueling outage in [month, year], River Bend employees had resolved many of the station’s most problematic equipment issues, and their work produced convincing results. Since March 2008, River Bend Station has enjoyed a near-continuous run. The only break in production occurred last September when the plant was manually shutdown in response to Hurricane Gustav.

The other major contributor to River Bend''s success has been its people. In 2008, employees launched a performance improvement plan that outlined specific actions to remedy problem areas and reverse negative trends. Once the plan was completed, River Bend transitioned to the next level of performance improvement with a new business plan, "Mastery of Fundamentals 2009."

The premise of the 2009 plan is simple yet powerful: By mastering the fundamentals of safely and efficiently generating electricity, each individual at River Bend becomes a key contributor to the plant’s overall success. Processes put in place reinforced a culture of continuous improvement and set the stage for sustained excellence.

“Over the last cycle, we’ve learned the value of understanding our performance indicators and having clearly defined goals, strong leadership and a firm grasp of the fundamentals,” Perito said. “And with each success, we’re raising the bar on performance expectations.

“There will be challenges ahead, but by keeping up the momentum, we’ll be better prepared to resolve problems, rebound quickly and stay on track,” he added. “We’re definitely on the right track at River Bend, and I want everyone to know that this is just the beginning.”

River Bend Station is owned by Entergy Gulf States Louisiana.

Entergy owns and operates power plants with approximately 30,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity, and it is the second-largest nuclear generator in the United States. Entergy delivers electricity to 2.7 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Entergy has annual revenues of more than $13 billion and approximately 14,300 employees.

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entergy-nuclear.com.