Donald C. Cook Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power plant located just north of the city of Bridgman, Michigan which is part of Berrien County, on a 650-acre (2.6 km2) site 11 miles south of St. Joseph, Michigan, USA. The plant is owned by American Electric Power (AEP) and operated by Indiana Michigan Power, an AEP subsidiary. This is currently the company's only nuclear power plant, which has two nuclear reactors. The plant is operated by the Indiana Michigan Power Company and owned by American Electric Power.

Built at a cost of $1.3 billion, the plant produces enough electricity to meet the needs of a city 1.25 million people.

The Donald C. Cook Nuclear Power Plant is connected to the power grid via one 765KV line that goes from the plant to AEP's DuMont substation near Lakeville, Indiana and by numerous 345KV lines, two of which interconnect with Consumers Energy/METC, connecting with the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station, owned by Entergy.

The plant has a visitors center that was open to the public six days a week on a drop in basis. Since the attacks of September 11, however, the plant is open only to school groups by reservation. The visitors center features a 26 foot animated model demonstrating how the plant operates.

Nuclear Power Plant Incidents

  • A transformer caused an automatic shutdown of Unit 1 in 2003.
  • A massive intrusion of fish caused both units to shut down for approximately 25 hours on April 24–25, 2003.
  • A fire broke out in the generator of Unit 1 on September 20, 2008. causing the reactor to shut down. No radiation was released and Unit 2 continued to operate at full power
Specification of Donald C. Cook Nuclear Power Plant

Unit 1 Unit 2
Reactor Type Pressurized Water Pressurized Water
Reactor Manufacturer Westinghouse Westinghouse
Turbine Manufacturer General Electric Brown Boveri
Generation Capacity 1,020 megawatts 1,090 megawatts
Transmission System Connection 345,000 volts 765,000 volts
Construction Began March 1, 1969 March 1, 1969
Grid connection February 10, 1975 March 22, 1978
Operational Date August 27, 1975 July 1, 1978
Expiration of Original License October 25, 2014 December 23, 2017
Expiration of Renewed License 2034 2037