Progress Energy Inc's (PGN.N) 838-megawatt Crystal River 3 nuclear power unit in Florida was at 17 percent power early Wednesday as it began to exit a recent outage, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in its power reactor status report.

The unit, in Red Level, Florida, about 85 miles north of Tampa, was manually tripped on Monday after a control rod was inserted into the core, a company spokeswoman said previously.

The 3,151-MW Crystal River station also includes the 379-MW coal Unit 1, the 491-MW coal Unit 2, the 721-MW coal Unit 4 and the 722-MW coal Unit 5 as well as the nuclear unit.

One MW powers about 300 homes in Florida.

Progress Energy operates the reactor and owns all of Units 1, 2, 4 and 5.

Several companies own Unit 3, including Progress (90.45 percent), Seminole Electric Cooperative (1.7 percent), Orlando Utilities Commission (1.6 percent), Gainesville-Alachua City Utility (1.41 percent), Tallahassee Electric Department (1.33 percent), Ocala Utilities Division (1.33 percent), Leesburg Municipal Electric Department (0.82 percent), Kissimmee Utilities (0.68 percent), New Smyrna Beach Utility Commission (0.56 percent), Alachua Electric Department (0.08 percent) and Bushnell Utility Department (0.04 percent).

Progress plans to increase the output of Unit 3 to about 1,080 MW.

Progress Energy owns and operates more than 21,000 MW of generating capacity, markets energy commodities, and transmits and distributes electricity to more than 3.1 million customers in the Carolinas and Florida. (Reporting by Eileen Moustakis; editing by Jim Marshall)

Florida