Koeberg Nuclear Power Station

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Active reactors ( gross ):

The Koeberg Nuclear Power Station is located 30 kilometers north of Cape Town, on the west coast of South Africa.

The Koeberg Nuclear Power Station consists of two fueled with uranium pressurized water reactors. The reactors were built according to the plans of the French Framatome. The operator is the South African Eskom. The nuclear power plant is currently the only one in the whole of Africa. It has a net output of 1800 MW ( 2 x 900 MW), produced by the second strongest ( Angra ) generators in the southern hemisphere.

At the site Koeberg intention South Africa, the prototype of a pebble bed reactor (english Pebble Bed Modular Reactor, PBMR ) to build upon the German model. In 2010, the project was abandoned, however, because of technical problems and because the construction costs ran out of control after the withdrawal of Eskom and Westinghouse, could find neither customers nor investors for the project.

History

The start of construction of the Koeberg nuclear power plant was in 1976. Reactor Unit 1 was, after a construction period of almost eight years, for the first time on 14 March 1984 critical. The second block was followed on 7 July 1985. Koeberg Reactor -1 was first synchronized on 4 April 1984 with the network, the reactor Koeberg -2 on 25 July 1985. Took the commercial operation of Unit 1 on July 21, 1984 and the block 2 on November 9, 1985.

During the construction phase, four bombs were detonated on the power plant site in December 1982 by ANC guerrillas despite strict safety precautions.

Incidents

On December 25, 2005, severely damaged after maintenance and replacement of fuel the generator of the first block when starting up the reactor. It has made ​​an immediate shutdown of the reactor. Inside the generator is a three-inch long pin has been discovered, which is usually mounted on the outside. First Eskom was assumed that these bolts had caused the failure. At times, the media spoke also of sabotage, after a political group claimed responsibility for the act. The actual reason of the fault, however, was not known until later. Inside the generator is a magnetic material had collected, which damaged the insulation of the generator. Consequently, the rotor and the guide vane has been damaged. As a result, there were several days of blackouts in Cape Town. The repairs were completed in May 2006 as initially a replacement rotor had to be procured from 200 tons from France with a weight.

Due to failures in the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station, in 2006, again in shortages in electricity supply in South Africa. These concerns also the neighboring country of Namibia, as energy demand in the peak load is 500 MW, of which only a maximum of 382 MW even be produced. Therefore, there is a ten-year contract for the supply of electricity with South Africa. The utility Eskom responded to the unstable power situation by the distribution of energy -saving lamps.

To protect the population from any severe accidents in the five kilometer radius around the plant a so-called exclusion zone has been established, which is excluded from any urban planning activity. Portions of this zone serve as a private nature reserve. Another zone of 15 km radius is designated as an evacuation zone.

Data of the reactor units

The Koeberg Nuclear Power Station has a total of two blocks:

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