AEP's Cook Nuclear Plant Unit 2 in Michigan shut after steam leak

May 15 (Reuters) - American Electric Power Company Inc's Indiana Michigan Power on Wednesday said its 1,194-net megawatts Cook Nuclear Plant Unit 2 has been manually tripped offline after a steam leak was discovered on May 14.

The cause of the steam leak is still being determined and the repair is underway, the company said in a press release.

At 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, operators began to reduce power to allow for repair of the steam leak, and removed a turbine from service to isolate the leak, the company said.

The reactor was removed from service at 4:27 a.m. on Wednesday, while Unit 1 of the Cook plant remains at 100% power with no impact to customer service, it added.

The Cook Nuclear plant's Unit 1 primarily services Southwest Michigan and Unit 2 services Northwest/Central Indiana (as far south as Fort Wayne, IN), as per the company website.

The company has not provided return to service information, however, it does not expect the repair to be lengthy.

In late March, the reactor went into its twenty-seventh refueling outage after running for 12,023 hours during its last cycle at a capacity factor of 99.4%, generating 14,094,064 megawatt-hours of (net) electricity.

The reactor's operating license is set to expire in December of 2037, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). (Reporting by Harshit Verma in Bengaluru, Editing by Franklin Paul)