9 Aug (NucNet): The UK’s last remaining commercially operational Magnox reactor unit will continue to generate electricity until September 2014, almost four years beyond its original closure date.
The UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) said today that it has been given permission to continue operating Wylfa-1, in Anglesey, north Wales, by transferring partially used fuel from unit 2.
The move has been approved by the Office for Nuclear Regulation and is supported by the Department for Energy and Climate Change, the NDA said.
This system of fuel transfer, known as inter-reactor fuel transfer (IRX), has already been used at Oldbury and has been successfully tested at Wylfa.
Both Wylfa units were originally scheduled for shutdown in December 2010, but the NDA said an opportunity was identified to continue producing electricity for longer. Unit 2 was shut down in April 2012 because of limited fuel stocks, following the final shipment of Magnox fuel – which is no longer manufactured – to the site in 2011.
The NDA said the additional income from Wylfa and the two-unit Oldbury nuclear station, which closed in February 2012 after generating electricity for four years longer than originally scheduled, is so far estimated to be worth around 600 million pounds (938 million US dollars, 760 million euro).
