Czech Temelín to shut down unit 1 on Friday evening for planned refuelling

The Temelín nuclear power plant will take unit 1 offline as planned on Friday evening. Technicians will replace part of the fuel and inspect, among other things, the safety systems and turbine. ČEZ plans to carry out 16,000 different tasks during the outage, which will last approximately two months. Temelín plant spokesperson Marek Sviták told the media today.

Before disconnecting the unit from the transmission grid, staff will reduce the reactor’s output to one-third. "We will replace 54 of the total 163 fuel assemblies, six more than last year. This will allow the unit to operate for two months longer, or fourteen months. Unit 1 will thereby also move to a longer fuel cycle. As usual, during the outage we will inspect the safety systems, and we have a number of inspections planned around the turbine and generator," said Jan Kruml, director of the Temelín nuclear power plant.

During the outage, technicians also plan to carry out 70 investment projects focused on modernising the plant and further strengthening its safety. For example, they will modernise safety valves in the technical water system and replace one of the key fire-water tanks. The modernisation of the plant’s control system, which began in 2022, will enter its final phase. A thousand people, including contractors, will take part in the outage.

This will be the only planned fuel replacement outage this year. Unit 2, which moved to a longer fuel cycle last year, will be taken offline in February next year.

Temelín supplies around one-fifth of domestic electricity consumption. Since the start of this year, it has generated 7.9 terawatt-hours of electricity, compared with 14.3 terawatt-hours last year.