Czech power utility CEZ said on 15 July it had increased the output of unit 1 at the Temelín NPP by introducing new separators during the recently completed routine outage. The exact increase in output will be communicated to the power engineers only after the results of the guarantee measurement.
Separators are used to reduce the humidity of the steam that drives the turbine. In nuclear power plants, they are most often combined with steam reheaters. CEZ expects an increase in production from the new separators. CEZ says increased output from Temelín can replace coal-fired power plants and save several thousand tons of CO2 a year.
"Improving the efficiency of zero-emission NPPs is part of our new vision for Clean Energy of Tomorrow,” said Temelin plant director Jan Kruml. “At both of our units, we have added 568 MWe since their start-up, which is already the power of a larger power plant. Currently, the two power plants together produce over 30 TWh a year.”
The increase in output is the result of better efficiency in the non-nuclear part of the power plant brought by the new separators. Reactor power remains the same and fuel consumption has not increased. "Thanks to the new separators, we can make better use of the steam in the non-nuclear part of the power plant and ultimately get more power on the generator without increasing the reactor's output. We will know the exact increase only after the evaluation of the guarantee measurement," he said.
The Czech Republic operates six commercial nuclear power units – four Soviet-built VVER-440s at the the Dukovany NPP and two Russian VVER-1000 units at the Temelin NPP, which together provided about 35% of total electricity production.
