The restart of unit 3 at Sweden’s Ringhals NPP, which was due to restart operation the end of June following maintenance work has been postponed by three more weeks, according to Swedish Television (SVT). It will now restart on 19 July, Johan Pettersson, a spokesperson for owner/operator Vattenfall told SVT. "At the end of the maintenance period, an additional task was added," Pettersson said.
Ringhals 4 was only restarted in April following an extended outage, following repairs of to its pressure vessel that was damaged in August 2022. However, Pettersson said that the scale of the problem at unit 3 is not comparable.
Following the decommissioning of several reactors in 2017-2020, including Ringhals 1&2, Sweden now has three operating NPPs with a total of six reactors (Forsmark 1-3, Oskarshamn 3, and Ringhals 3&4). Forsmark and Ringhals are operated by Vattenfall and Oskarshamn by Fortum-Eon. Together they produce around 30% of Sweden’s electricity output, according to the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority (SSM).
Image: The Ringhals nuclear power plant in Varberg, southwestern Sweden (courtesy of Vattenfall)
