Dukovany nuke plant ends unit 3 shutdown

Dukovany, South Moravia, Nov 16 (CTK) - Nuclear power plant Dukovany today ended the planned shutdown of unit 3, which started on September 30 and was connected with a regular partial fuel replacement, Jana Stefankova from the plant told CTK today.

The unit started supplying electricity to the grid after the first turbine was connected at 4:50. Connection of the second turbine followed at 16:40, Stefankova said.

According to power utility CEZ, all nuclear sources in Czechia are in operation at present, four at Dukovany and two at Temelin.

The fission reaction at Dukovany' unit 3 was resumed on Monday. The operators are now gradually increasing the reactor performance and carrying out the necessary inspections and tests.

"With an expected minimum of 60 years of operation, all of our shutdowns involve a series of investments and inspections that cannot be rushed. Nevertheless, we managed to complete this outage slightly ahead of schedule," Dukovany plant head Roman Havlin said.

According to earlier information the firm published i the Market Transparency (REMIT) system, the shutdown was to end on Friday, November 18.

In Dukovany it was the last outage this year connected with fuel replacement. The next planned outage will start in February next year. According to ČEZ, it will concern the second Dukovany unit.

Unit 2 was last shut down on October 15 and has resumed electricity supplies this month. During this unplanned outage, technicians repaired a blockage in one of the 12 shut-off valves in the unit.

In unit 3, technicians carried out extensive equipment inspections and maintenance work in addition to fuel replacement. One of the main investment actions was the modification of the cooling water system routes. As a result, the plant will supply 15,539 megawatt-hours (MWh) more electricity to the grid annually.

"Technical capabilities are evolving and we are always looking for ways to be both safer and more efficient. As a result, we have increased the output of our nuclear units by almost 500 megawatts since we started operations, equivalent to a large coal-fired power plant," said Bohdan Zronek, board member and head of nuclear energy section at CEZ.

Temelin and Dukovany together supplied a total of 30.73 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity to the grid last year, with Temelin contributing 15.86 TWh and Dukovany 14.86 TWh. The Dukovany plant has generated 12.5 TWh of power so far this year.

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