Koeberg nuclear power plant
| Koeberg nuclear power plant | ||
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| location | ||
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| Coordinates | 33 ° 40 '36 " S , 18 ° 25' 55" E | |
| Country: | South Africa | |
| Data | ||
| Owner: | Eskom | |
| Operator: | Eskom | |
| Project start: | 1976 | |
| Commercial operation: | July 21, 1984 | |
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Active reactors (gross): |
2 (1880 MW) | |
| Energy fed in in 2010: | 12,899.94 GWh | |
| Energy fed in since commissioning: | 286,775.94 GWh | |
| Was standing: | June 4, 2011 | |
| The data source of the respective entries can be found in the documentation . | ||
The Koeberg nuclear power plant is located 30 kilometers north of Cape Town , on the west coast of South Africa .
The Koeberg nuclear power plant consists of two uranium-operated pressurized water reactors . The reactors were built according to plans by the French Framatome . The operator is the South African Eskom . The nuclear power plant is currently the only one in all of Africa . It has a net output of 1800 MW (2 × 900 MW), produced by the second most powerful generators (after Angra ) in the southern hemisphere.
At the site Koeberg South Africa, the prototype of a proposed pebble bed reactor (English Pebble Bed Modular Reactor, PBMR) to build on the German model. In 2010, however, the project was discontinued because after Eskom and Westinghouse had withdrawn due to technical problems and high construction costs, neither customers nor investors could be found for the project.
history
Construction of the Koeberg nuclear power plant began in 1976. Reactor unit 1 became critical for the first time on March 14, 1984 after a construction period of almost eight years . The second unit followed on July 7, 1985. The Koeberg-1 reactor was first synchronized with the grid on April 4, 1984, and the Koeberg-2 reactor on July 25, 1985. Unit 1 went into commercial operation on July 21, 1984 and Block 2 on November 9, 1985.
In December 1982, during the construction phase, ANC guerrillas detonated four bombs on the power plant site, despite strict security measures.
Accidents
On December 25, 2005, when the reactor was started up after maintenance work and the replacement of fuel elements, the generator in the first unit was severely damaged. The reactor was shut down immediately. An eight centimeter long bolt has been discovered inside the generator, usually on the outside. At first Eskom assumed that this bolt had caused the failure. At times the media also spoke of sabotage after a political group had confessed to the crime. However, the real cause of the disruption was not revealed until later. Magnetic material had accumulated inside the generator, which damaged the generator's insulation. As a result, the rotor and the guide vane were also damaged. As a result, there were power outages in Cape Town that lasted for days. The repairs could only be completed in May 2006, as a replacement rotor weighing 200 tons first had to be procured from France.
In 2006, failures at the Koeberg nuclear power plant repeatedly resulted in supply bottlenecks in South Africa's power supply. The neighboring country Namibia is also affected by this, since the energy demand in the peak load range is 500 MW, of which only a maximum of 382 MW is produced by the company itself. That is why there has been a ten-year contract for electricity supply with South Africa since 2006. The energy supplier Eskom reacted to the unstable supply situation by distributing energy-saving lamps.
To protect the population from any serious incidents, a so-called exclusion zone has been set up within a five-kilometer radius of the power plant , which is excluded from any urban planning activity. Parts of this zone serve as a private nature reserve. Another zone with a radius of 15 kilometers is designated as an evacuation zone.
Data of the reactor blocks
The Koeberg nuclear power plant has a total of two blocks :
| Reactor block | Reactor type | net power |
gross power |
start of building | Network synchronization |
Commercialization of essential operation |
switching off processing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Koeberg-1 | Pressurized water reactor | 900 MW | 944 MW | July 1, 1976 | April 4th 1984 | July 21, 1984 | |
| Koeberg-2 | Pressurized water reactor | 900 MW | 944 MW | July 1, 1976 | July 25, 1985 | November 9, 1985 |
See also
Web links
- Operator ESKOM's page on the power plant
- Image of the plant
- Plague: Koeberg (South Africa)
- Archived website of the PBMR project ( Memento from March 10, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ^ Address by the Minister of Public Enterprises, Barbara Hogan, to the National Assembly, on the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor. September 16, 2010, http://www.info.gov.za/speech/DynamicAction?pageid=461&sid=13029&tid=18561 ( Memento from September 21, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
- ↑ ANC History (English) ( Memento from February 28, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Eskom communication on generator defect from January 19, 2006 ( Memento from October 5, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Summary of the "bolt incident"
- ↑ Cape Town News of February 20, 2006
- ^ Electricity supply update. ( Memento of December 26, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 261 kB), accessed on December 25, 2015
- ^ General newspaper Windhoek
- ↑ Power Reactor Information System of the IAEA : "South Africa: Nuclear Power Reactors" (English)