Minor fault shuts down generator at Finnish nuclear power plant

Thursday, September 13, 2007

HELSINKI, Finland: Plant officials shut down a nuclear reactor in southern Finland Thursday, after a faulty turbine caused a generator to lose power, but no radiation leak or other damage was reported, officials said.

The 250-megawatt generator, at the Loviisa plant, 90 kilometers (55 miles) east of Helsinki, was shut down but the other 250-megwatt unit was running normally, operations manager Markku Tiitinen said.

“We’re running at half steam now,” Tiitinen said. “No danger was posed to any of the workers or to the environment. There was no radiation.”

Tiitinen said a fault in the electrical control mechanism caused the turbine to lose power but plant officials did not know why the mechanism failed.

Another 500-megwatt reactor at the Loviisa plant was out of operation because of an annual service.

Besides Loviisa, there are two 860-megwatt reactors at Olkiluoto, 250 kilometers (155 miles) northwest of Helsinki. It is also the construction site of Finland’s fifth nuclear reactor — a 1,600-megwatt unit — expected to be online by 2011.

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