Nuclear plant of Grohnde

The nuclear plant of Grohnde is located at Emmerthal in Lower Saxony on the Weser, in the district of Hameln-Pyrmont.

Characteristics

This powerplant includes/understands a pressurized water engine (REFERENCE MARK) built by the company Siemens (KWU).

Grohnde : 1300 MWe, brought into service in 1984, closing envisaged in 2017.

The nominal thermal production is of 3900 megawatts and the electric production of approximately 1430 megawatts rough. The engine uses 193 fuel elements UO2 with an enrichment up to Uranium-235 4% as well as fuel elements MOX. An increase in enrichment with 4,4% was required.

Exploitation

The commercial exploitation started after the voted German law on the Atom on February 1st, 1985. In the calendar year in 1997, the nuclear plant produced 12.528.660 MWh what corresponds to the world records of production of a nuclear reactor. In the years 1985,1986,1987,1989,1990 and 1998, it also obtained the best output mondial.

The shareholders are E.ON to 83,3% and the town of Bielefeld to 16,7%.

Incidents

So far, the exploitation occurred without significant incidents except for an event in 1996 classified 1 on the scale INNATE, for an unforeseen opening of a valve over one short duration.

Recall: The scale INNATE is used for classification with respect to safety of the events in nuclear installations which are classified from 0 to 7 (see: Nuclear plant).

Programmed stop

To date, the permanent closure of the nuclear plant of Grohnde is planned for 2017. In addition, a warehouse of transit for worn fuel was brought into service at the beginning of 2006.

External bonds