British Energy Says Remedial Engineering Work Needed On Units
Written by NucNet
Friday, 18 January 2008
18 Jan (NucNet): Remedial engineering work is needed on units at two British Energy (BE) nuclear plants, which means the units are expected to return to service in a phased process over the second and third quarters of the 2008-09 financial year.
Heysham-A1, Heysham-A2, Hartlepool-A1 and Hartlepool-A2 remain out of service as a result of boiler closure unit (BCU) inspections.
BE said today that it had identified a number of engineering modifications that will be needed to reduce the reliance on the current wire windings. "These include a mechanism to lock in the existing pre-stress in the BCUs, improvements to the structure of the BCUs, upgrades to BCU cooling systems and enhancements to instrumentation to monitor the BCUs when in operation," BE said.
The cost of the remedial engineering work is not expected to exceed 50 million pounds (GBP) (67 million euros, 98 million US dollars), incurred in financial year 2008-09, BE said. This is in addition to the GBP 20 million costs of inspection and assessment of the units incurred in financial year 2007-08.
BE said it expects to give further details about the return to service of the units in its third-quarter results announcement next month.
Related reports in the NucNet database (available to subscribers)
British Energy Chief Optimistic Despite Outage Setbacks (News No. 241, 13 November 2007)
British Energy Issues Update On Reactor Inspections (News No. 247, 22 November 2007)
