Two-unit nuclear facility has produced 16.5 TWh of electricity so far this year
Modernisation and well-timed maintenance outages led electricity production at the two-unit Temelín nuclear power station in the South Bohemian region of the Czech Republic to record highs so far this year, state utility company ČEZ said.
The company confirmed that since the beginning of the year the facility had hit a high of 16.5 TWh of electricity, surpassing the previous record of 16.48 TWh in 2017. It said that with no planned outages 17 TWh could be reached by the end of the year.
So far, the two units have produced enough electricity to supply every household in the country for 12 months.
The company said work at the plant in previous years had led to it hitting new production highs this year.
“This is the result of modernisation programmes and primarily changes to fuel cycles,” said Jan Kruml, director of the Temelín plant. “We extended the operating time between outages, naturally with maximum emphasis on safety. And this year everything came together correctly.
The company said production in coming years would depend on whether it needed to carry out one or two outages for fuel replacement, inspections and investments. Next year the plant expected to record lower production.
The company stressed that breaking new records was not its objective, rather to provide efficient and safe long-term operations with reliable emission free energy.
The Czech Republic has six commercially operational reactor units: four Russia-designed VVER-440 units at Dukovany and two larger VVER-1000 units at Temelín.
