OSLO — Two Nordic nuclear power generators suffered unexpected outages on Wednesday, hitting electricity supply in the region at a time of high demand due to cold winter weather.
Finland’s OL3 reactor, Europe’s largest nuclear plant with a capacity of 1,600 megawatt (MW), will be offline for an estimated eight hours, operator TVO said in a market message on power bourse Nord Pool.
An unexpected “rapid shutdown” of the reactor turbine happened during planned testing of the systems, a TVO spokesperson said.
In Sweden, the Ringhals 4 reactor with a capacity of 1,130 MW went offline in the early morning hours due to a problem with a steam generator, operator Vattenfall said in a statement.
The company said Ringhals 4 could potentially restart by the end of Thursday.
“Electricity production is continuing as usual at Ringhals 3,” it added.
Ringhals 1 and 2 have both been permanently closed. – Reuters
