Bulgaria: Reactor water leak at Kozloduy nuclear power plant – Unit 6 to close tomorrow

THE Kozloduy nuclear power plant will close tomorrow, Saturday the 1,000 megawatt unit 6 after the detection of a water leak, as announced by the company.

The plant said the unit will operate within operational safety standards, but will shut down the reactor to eliminate a coolant leak from the first to the second circuit in one of its steam generators.

“The operation in unit 6 will be interrupted to repair the leak before it reaches the maximum limit allowed by the operating regulation,” reads the announcement of the station manager.

“No change in the level of radioactivity has been observed in the workplaces and in the unit,” the announcement states.

The problem was identified in late November in the steam generator flat tube, a key system for converting hot water from the reactor’s heart into steam that powers turbines to generate electricity.

The station of Kozlodui is located in the northwestern part of Bulgaria, near the Danube. This year the station has experienced two other incidents caused by faulty generators that shut down reactor 5 in June and then reactor 6 in October.

Kozlodui is Bulgaria’s only nuclear power plant and produces a third of Bulgaria’s energy. Two 1,000-megawatt pressurized water reactors operate at the station and are currently powered by Russian fuel.

The Bulgarian government is looking for new suppliers to reduce its dependence on Moscow after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and is considering offers from US Westinghouse and France’s Framatome.

Units 1 and 4 are obsolete and were closed in 1998 and 2006 respectively, following a demand by Brussels that made it a condition for Bulgaria’s EU membership.

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