BYRON (WIFR) -- An inspection at Byron station over last Monday's manual shutdown could prompt a change for the industry.

Plant leaders at Byron station are spending more time in their switch yard this week.

Exelon Representative Robert Osgood says "the design in the switch yards bring voltage in from the grid and sends the power we make out to the grid."

But the transformers in the switch yard are also designed to automatically shut down at the first sign of trouble, which didn't happen last Monday and officials have prompted an inspection to figure out why.

Viktoria Minlyng of the NRC says, "the reason we started an inspection is not because of the trip itself but kind of the way some of the equipment reacted to the trip and that is where we get into the design issue."

The insulator that failed did not trip an automatic shut down, and because Exelon has not seen a response like this before, leaders think the failure to trip some kind of alarm could show a potential design flaw that effects more than just Byron station.

Minlyng says, "It could be an issue for Braidwood, it could be an issue for other Exelon plants. It could be an issue for plants with similar design that are not Exelon in the rest of the country."

But while the automatic shut down didn't occur, there are still procedures put in place for a manual shut down. And Exelon says the entire process was done by the book and there was never a public safety concern.

Osgood adds, "the plant is designed with multiple safety systems and back ups to those safety systems and our number one priority is to protect the health and safety of the public and we won't operate these plants if we can't do it safely."

And because of this incident a new safety design could go into effect industry-wide.