Planned outage of second unit at the Czech Dukovany plant starts today and will last two months

At the Dukovany Nuclear Power Plant, workers will take the second generating unit offline at noon as planned for routine maintenance, equipment inspections and the replacement of some of its fuel with fresh fuel. The unit will stop supplying electricity to the grid this evening, plant spokesman Jiří Bezděk said. It is expected to be reconnected to the transmission grid in early November. The other three Dukovany units and both units at Temelín are operating.

"According to preliminary plans, the outage of the second unit should last 71 days. Workers will refine the actual scope based on the results of tests and inspections," the spokesman said.

According to ČEZ, Dukovany's second unit has successfully completed its first fuel cycle operating at the new increased output of 512 megawatts (MW).

ČEZ completed the increase in output from 500 MW to 512 MW at all Dukovany units this year. Last year, workers increased the output of unit three in April, unit two in August and unit one in November. Unit four first reached the higher output at the end of March this year.

During the current outage of the second unit, workers will carry out more than 17,000 work tasks. The most demanding work in terms of time and technical complexity will include replacing cabling, renovating sectional switchboards and maintaining the backup diesel generator. "The first days of the weekend will be devoted mainly to cooling down the equipment and stabilizing operations, but maintenance and servicing work on equipment in both the primary and secondary circuits will get fully underway on Monday," the spokesman said.

"Preparations for the outage have been underway for several months. This is an extremely demanding period, and we always create the best possible working conditions for our employees and suppliers," plant director Roman Havlín said.

The main factors in determining when units are taken offline are optimal fuel use and mandatory inspection and maintenance intervals.

Czechia has six nuclear units at two power plants. Last year, Dukovany supplied 14.7 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity to the transmission grid, and it has supplied 9.59 TWh so far this year. Temelín produced 15 TWh of electricity last year.

The Dukovany Nuclear Power Plant currently has four units, which were commissioned between 1985 and 1987. South Korea's KHNP won the contract to build two more units. In June, it signed an agreement to build the units with Elektrárna Dukovany II, the company overseeing the project as investor. Geological surveys for the new units began this month.