St Lucie Nuclear Power Plant's Unit 1 was manually shut down Wednesday morning after three control rods dropped into the reactor core. The manual reactor trip occurred at 9:47 a.m. EDT on August 13, 2026, while the unit operated at 100% power and was classified as a non‑emergency by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The plant is operated by NextEra Energy and includes a second unit that was not affected. The trip was uncomplicated and all systems responded normally after the rods entered the core. Operations were stabilized in Mode 3, known as hot standby, and decay heat was removed by discharging steam to the main condenser through turbine bypass valves and main feedwater. Unit 2 continued to operate without interruption. After the issue was resolved, Unit 1 returned to 100% power. The cause of the control rod drop was not publicly specified, and the plant resumed normal operations after the equipment issue was addressed.