London, 9 July (Argus) — The operator of Switzerland's 985MW Gosgen nuclear power plant and German manufacturer Siemens will assess over the next few days how long the reactor will be out of service after problems with the newly installed generator forced the unit off line on 2 July.
The reactor's restart remains uncertain with plant operator Kernkraftwerk Gosgen-Daniken previously saying that the unit will not return until at least mid-July.
The Gosgen plant ramped up on 2 July following scheduled maintenance but had to be halted again that day after the operator detected excessive vibrations on the rotor of the new generator, manufactured by Siemens.
Siemens has since discovered that part of the rotor's surface coating has been coming off, probably because of a manufacturing fault, Kernkraftwerk Gosgen-Daniken said today.
Siemens will now assess whether it can repair the damage on site or whether it will be necessary to transport the generator back to the firm's manufacturing site in Germany.
“The decision where the final repair will take place will be made in the next few days”, the plant operator said. “Only then will we be able to more accurately estimate how long the necessary repairs will take”, it said.
The new generator is a part of a series of retrofitting measures aimed at increasing the reactor's capacity by 30MW.
Swiss utility Alpiq has a 40pc stake in the Gosgen plant. The remaining stakes are split between Swiss utilities Axpo (25pc) and CKW (12.5pc) and the cities of Zurich (15pc) and Bern (7.5pc).
Switzerland has a total of five reactors with a combined capacity of around 3.2GW. Swiss operators do not publish maintenance schedules in advance, and only the 365MW Beznau unit 2 reactor has completed its annual stoppages so far in 2013.
Historical data show plant maintenance picking up in August and September (see table).
Swiss nuclear plant maintenance 2009-13 |
||||||||||||
Plant |
Reactor |
Net Capacity (MW) |
Maintenance in 2013 |
Maintenance in 2012 |
Maintenance in 2011 |
Maintenance in 2010 |
Maintenance in 2009 |
|||||
|
|
|
Shutdown |
Return |
Shutdown |
Return |
Shutdown |
Return |
Shutdown |
Return |
Shutdown |
Return |
Beznau |
Unit 1 |
28-May |
09-Jun |
18-May |
12-Jul |
07-Jun |
20-Jun |
21-May |
19-Jul |
23-Jun |
04-Jul |
|
Beznau |
Unit 2 |
na |
na |
28-Aug |
17-Sep |
12-Aug |
01-Oct |
17-Aug |
23-Sep |
31-Jul |
15-Sep |
|
Muhleberg* |
Unit 1 |
373 |
na |
na |
05-Aug |
02-Sep |
30-Jun |
23-Sep |
15-Aug |
09-Sep |
09-Aug |
09-Sep |
Gosgen |
Unit 1 |
985 |
04-May |
na |
02-Jun |
22-Jun |
04-Jun |
30-Jun |
28-May |
19-Jun |
06-Jun |
26-Jun |
Leibstadt |
Unit 1 |
1,190 |
na |
na |
06-Aug |
30-Oct |
03-Aug |
30-Aug |
31 Juli |
16-Sep |
08-Aug |
01-Sep |
*short outage from 24-27 May 2013 but more extensive maintenance to follow |
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— plant operators |
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