A 650,000-pound piece of nuclear equipment will slow Rock Hill traffic. Avoid these roads
Transformers aren’t just toys or blockbuster movie series. One as big as a house will help power York County.
But first it’ll have to get to Duke Energy’s Catawba Nuclear Station, which could slow traffic in Rock Hill and Lake Wylie.
A 650,000-pound main step-up transformer will travel 20 miles Saturday from the Norfolk Southern rail yard near downtown Rock Hill to the Duke Energy power plant in Lake Wylie. The trip will take six to eight hours, and a police escort will travel with it between 20 mph to 30 mph.
Toting a 650,000-pound load is the equivalent weight of a fully fueled Boeing 747.
The move will impact traffic along Cherry Road, Heckle Boulevard, S.C. 161 into Newport and S.C. 274 in Lake Wylie. Duke Energy didn’t give an exact time when the transport will begin.
Duke Energy said it tries to use roads with multiple lanes in each direction to limit traffic issues. Still, drivers can plan to avoid those areas during the day Saturday to avoid problems.
Weather or other factors could change the move, with Monday as a backup date.
The new equipment weighs about as much as a 3,200-square-foot house, according to Duke Energy. It will be installed at Catawba Nuclear during a scheduled refueling outage this year.
The transformer will step up the 22,000 volts generated by Unit 2 at Catawba to 230,000 volts for distribution on the Duke Energy grid.
The transformer was shipped from Cordova, Spain, to Charleston before its train ride to Rock Hill. Edwards Moving & Rigging will truck and trailer the transformer. The load will be more than 230 feet long, 20 feet high and 12 feet wide.
This story was originally published January 12, 2024 at 11:31 AM.
