Refueling, reactor, turbine and safety systems inspection are among the main activities at Temelín during the planned outage of Unit 1. The outage will start tonight and is pre-planned until mid-November.
The operations personnel will start to reduce the reactor power at 18 o'clock, the Unit will cease to produce electricity about three hours later. The disconnection of the turbine generator from the transmission system will take place at approximately one third of reactor rated power at about 21 o'clock. For the first two days the equipment cools down, then, the outage works will start from Monday.
The main activities will include the replacement of one fourth of the fuel. The conditions of the reactor pressure vessel will be verified and security systems and all parts of the turbine will be subjected to inspections. "It will be for the first time that we will open at the same time all the four turbines (3 LP turbines and 1 HP turbine). Those are preventive measures on the basis of the results of the inspections of the Unit 2 turbines," remarked spokesman of the power plant Marek Sviták.
Four containers with the spent fuel will be exported to the spent fuel storage, where they will occupy positions 29 to 32. The increased number of exported containers will unload outages in the coming years.
In total, the outage schedule includes approximately twelve thousand activities. Approximately 700 workers from six tens of supplier companies and nearly 400 ČEZ workers will participate to provide for them.
Unit 2 is shut down from 3 June. Currently, the fuel has been loaded, the reactor is closed and the remaining final tests will take place. “The start-up of the reactor will depend on the results of the tests,” but first we must get the authorization from the State Office for Nuclear Safety, said Sviták. The electricity production is planned for the beginning of the September.
Neither of the outage will have any impact on the electricity supply. "Both outages are reported in advance. In addition to that, in summer the power consumption is lower and ČEZ covers the missing power by other sources," added Sviták.
Temelín nuclear power plant produced its first electricity in December 2000. It is currently the largest source of electricity production in the Czech Republic. It covers a fifth of the Czech electricity consumption by its safe and emission-free operation. In 2015, the plant produced 14.23 billion kWh of electrical energy. With a Temelín's annual production, South Bohemia would last out almost 4.5 years and, for all Czech households, it would be enough for one whole year.
Ing. Marek Sviták
Temelín NPP ČEZ Group Spokesman