EnBW shuts down Unit-II of Neckarwestheim nuclear power station for annual inspection

EnBW’s Unit-II of its Neckarwestheim nuclear power station in Germany has been disconnected from the grid on September 21 2013 to carry out a scheduled annual maintenance.

During the overhaul, testing and maintenance work will be carried out at the station with various technical projects and fuel rods replacement.

The maintenance tasks will be carried out under the supervision of the Ministry of the Environment, Climate and Energy Industry of Baden-Wurttemberg and will be monitored by the TUV inspection group and KeTAG.

EnBW technical director of Neckarwestheim nuclear power station Christoph Heil said, “We continue to make high safety demands of our nuclear power plants. For this reason, we have planned extensive maintenance activities again for this year’s overhaul of Unit II.”

“Examples of these activities include a basic overhaul of one of the three main cooling water pumps, and work on components such as pumps and fittings – one of the four residual heat removal chains.” Heil added.

“We are also exchanging a transformer, and conducting control system-related modernization work on one processing plant over which cleaned water is fed to the cooling tower operation.”

Around 1,200 additional specialists will support the maintenance work at the plant.

In 1989, the plant went into operation and produced over 11 billion kWh of electricity in 2012.