Czech Dukovany plant's fourth unit completes two-month outage, set for higher output

The planned outage of the fourth unit at the Dukovany Nuclear Power Plant, which began on December 24 last year and involved replacing part of its fuel, ended today. The unit’s output will also rise from 500 to 512 megawatts (MW); the other three Dukovany units were upgraded last year. This will increase the plant’s total annual output by up to 350.000 megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity. Plant spokesman Jiří Bezděk said. All four Dukovany units are now operating, but the planned outage of the third unit will begin in two weeks.

Operators shut down the fourth Dukovany unit on Christmas Eve. In addition to replacing part of the fuel, energy workers had to complete 48 investment projects, carry out numerous inspections and tests, and prepare the entire generating unit to operate at higher output. The generator of the first turbine unit began supplying electricity to the grid today at 9:15, and the second turbine unit did so at 13:08. „The unit is expected to reach its full increased output during the coming week,“ the spokesman said.

For the first time in the power plant’s four decades of operation, all Dukovany units will therefore have an output of 512 MW. A great deal of work preceded the output increase, plant director Roman Havlín said.“The condition is always that we must not reduce the level of safety. That is why we still have a number of tests and trials ahead, which we have just begun,“ he said following the completed outage.

Czechia has six nuclear units at two power plants, all of which are now operating. Dukovany supplied 14,7 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity to the transmission grid last year, while Temelín generated 15 TWh.

This year marks 40 years since the first Dukovany unit was commissioned; it entered trial operation on May 3, 1985. All four Dukovany units have been in operation since July 1987. When they started up, they had an electrical output of 440 MW. Through equipment upgrades, energy workers later increased the output of each Dukovany unit to 500 MW.

Last year, the government decided to build two new reactors at Dukovany. They are to be built by South Korean company KHNP, with which ČEZ is now negotiating the final contract. The first of the new reactors is expected to be completed in 2036.