NEW YORK - Entergy Corp's 967-megawatt River Bend nuclear power reactor in Louisiana was shut as of early Monday, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in its daily power reactor status report.

On Friday, the unit was operating at 93 percent of capacity.

In an Event Notification Report, the company said the unit was being shut for a planned maintenance outage when reactor recirculation pumps unexpectedly tripped off line on Sunday.

The unit is expected to be down for about a month.

The River Bend station, which entered service in 1986, is located in St. Francisville in West Feliciana Parish, about 24 miles north-northwest of Baton Rouge.

One MW powers about 500 homes in Louisiana.

Entergy, of New Orleans, owns and operates about 30,000 MW of generating capacity, markets energy commodities, and transmits and distributes power to 2.7 million customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. (Reporting by Joe Silha, editing by John Picinich)

Energy