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The Beznau nuclear power plant in Döttingen has not produced electricity since Wednesday morning. The reason for the unplanned outage is assembly errors in two of the six emergency diesel engines, reports the power company Axpo, which operates the plant. In the case of so-called shock absorbers or vibration dampers, there was “a mounting deviation”.
The deviation means that the vibration dampers were not installed as documented before the Swiss Federal Nuclear Safety Inspection ENSI gave the green light. On Wednesday, Axpo was unable to explain exactly how this happened. The power company offered an answer to these and other questions by Thursday.
These are shock absorbers:
The mounting errors were found during a review as part of an earthquake safety check. Only when the deviation has been corrected will the nuclear power plant give the green light to ENSI’s electricity production again. “The work will probably take three to four weeks,” writes Axpo.
One thing is clear: you are running at full speed. Because with each additional day that the nuclear power plant is not connected to the electricity grid, the loss of profits increases. In three weeks this should be in the millions. About two years ago, the “Handelszeitung” estimated that a ruling would cost around 300,000 francs a day. However, it is highly dependent on the current price of electricity and the fixed supply contracts of the nuclear power plant.
The two emergency diesel engines are available to supply the Beznau nuclear power plant in the event of a severe earthquake. But even then, the safety of the plant would be guaranteed. Axpo writes that the other four emergency diesel engines have taken care of that.
An emergency diesel from the Beznau nuclear power plant, block 2:
When the nuclear power plant is shut down, the water vapor is visible from the non-nuclear part of the plant above the powerhouse. “There is no risk to people or the environment,” emphasizes Axpo. Water vapor Water vapor occasionally creates uncertainty among the inhabitants of the region.
District heating now also heats with oil
The failure also has consequences for customers in the Lower Aare Valley Regional Heating District (Refuna): During the failure, it cannot extract waste heat from the nuclear power plant. Instead, it supplies its more than 2,600 customers in eleven communities with heat from the wood-fired heating plant in Döttingen and four reserve heating plants that run on heating oil. “The change was made without interruptions,” reports Refuna.
Despite the complete failure of the Beznau heat supply, Refuna’s customers would not have to freeze thanks to the heating oil, even in winter. However, failure should mean higher bills for them. That was the case in the winter of 2015/16, when both units of the nuclear power plant came to a standstill.
