Sweden’s nuclear reactor Ringhals 4 faces further delay
Swedish company Vattenfall said on Friday it had delayed the restart of the Ringhals 4 nuclear reactor by about three weeks to February 23, in a further setback to power supplies in the Nordics and Baltics.
Vattenfall said in September that the reactor’s pressure vessel, a radioactive component, had been damaged during maintenance and would be out of service until January 31. “The repair of the pressure device is in progress,” said a regulatory statement to Nord Pool Power. exchange on Friday.
The company’s new and “more detailed action plan” showed repairs would continue until February 23, the company added. The extended outage at Ringhals 4, which has an installed capacity of 1,130 megawatts (MW), comes at a critical time as energy prices soar across Europe and countries struggle to ensure there is enough power for the coming winter.
Vattenfall said in September that the damage to the pressure vessel forced Ringhals to build a full-size model of the 12-meter (39-foot) high structure for training before repairs could take place. In neighboring Finland, the start-up of regular production from the long-awaited Olkiluoto 3 nuclear power reactor was recently postponed until January 22.
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