Czech Dukovany plant shuts down fourth unit today; fuel replacement and maintenance to last until March

The Dukovany nuclear power plant today at noon began the planned shutdown of its fourth unit to replace some of its fuel with fresh fuel and carry out regular maintenance and equipment inspections. The unit will stop supplying electricity to the grid in the evening, plant spokesperson Jiří Bezděk said. Due to the extensive scope of the work, the shutdown is scheduled to last until March next year.

For the first two days, energy workers will allow the equipment to cool down. On Friday, technicians will begin maintenance and servicing work on equipment in both the primary and secondary circuits. Hundreds of additional plant and contractor employees will therefore have to come to work not only on Christmas Eve but also during the Christmas holidays.

„Unit outages are the most demanding period in terms of staffing for both the plant and its contractors. Even though most of the planned work will take place after the new year, significantly more employees than usual will have to come to work,” said Roman Havlín, director of the Dukovany nuclear power plant.

ČEZ prioritises scheduling outages during periods of lower electricity consumption, such as Christmas. „Fuel campaigns—that is, the optimal use of fuel—and mandatory inspection and maintenance intervals are key factors in determining when unit outages begin. In the longer term, expected energy prices also play a role. We therefore schedule the work regardless of holidays or vacation periods,” said Bohdan Zronek, a member of the ČEZ board of directors and director of its nuclear energy division.

During the outage, energy workers will carry out 16,400 work tasks and 48 investment projects. In addition to inspections of the reactor and steam generators, they will perform a major overhaul of main circulation pump number six and inspect both steam turbine-generator sets and related equipment. Energy workers will also continue replacing unit-section switchgear, which is being done on all units as part of efforts to ensure the plant can operate for at least 60 years, Bezděk added.

This is the fourth unit outage at Dukovany this year; the third ended on 25 October. As the units are now switching from 12-month to 16-month fuel cycles, the number of outages per year is expected to fall from four to three.

Since the beginning of the year, the Dukovany plant has generated more than 14 TWh of electricity, a similar amount to its total output for 2023, when it generated 14.3 TWh of energy. Its output covers more than 20 percent of the Czech Republic’s total consumption.