MADRID, Sept 24 (Reuters) - Spain's 1,000 megawatt Vandellos II nuclear power station halted off schedule early on Thursday after operators detected a hot spot in the main transformer, a statement from the CSN nuclear watchdog said.
The fault was detected at 0000 GMT and plant was disconnected from the grid to allow for repairs.
"It won't happen overnight. It'll take several days," a spokeswoman said at the plant, which is near the northeastern port of Tarragona.
MADRID, Sept 24 (Reuters) - Spain's nuclear regulator said on Thursday it will inspect the 1,000 megawatt Iberdrola-owned Cofrentes nuclear power station after part of a fuel rod was dropped during refuelling work.
The Nuclear Safety Council (CSN) added in a statement that it had given the event on Tuesday a preliminary rating of 1 on the International Nuclear Events Scale (INES), but that workers, the general population and environment were not at risk.
MADRID, Sept 15 (Reuters) - Spain's oldest nuclear power station filed an appeal on Monday against a government decision to close the 500-megawatt plant in 2013, operators Nuclenor said on their website.
"Nuclenor considers that there are solid reasons to support the continued operation of the Santa Maria de Garona plant until 2019," a statement on the Nuclenor site said.
Barely a few days before the collapse of Lehman Brothers, EDF finally clinched its multi-billion pound acquisition of British Energy. At about the same time, the French state-controlled electricity group also tried – and failed – to counter veteran investor Warren Buffett’s bid for control of a US electricity utility, Constellation Energy.
MADRID, Nov 13 (Reuters) - Spain's nuclear watchdog on Thursday denied that a nuclear power plant already facing sanctions over a radioactive leak was also suffering from a particularly aggressive form of corrosion.
Earlier in the day, daily newspaper El Pais said lead particles detected in the interior of the Asco I nuclear power station during checks mandated by the Nuclear Safety Council (CSN) were derived from stress corrosion cracking (SCC).
MADRID, Nov 13 (Reuters) - Spain's 1,000-megawatt Vandellos II nuclear power station was reconnected to the national grid on Thursday afternoon, the plant's operators said in a statement.
The plant near to the northeastern port of Tarragona had been disconnected since early on Wednesday after a control rod had fallen into the reactor core on Saturday.
MADRID, Nov 8 (Reuters) - Output at Spain's 1,000-megawatt Vandellos II nuclear plant was cut to 49 percent from full power at 1425 GMT after a power surge caused overheating, a spokesman for the plant said on Saturday.
Operators reduced output after the surge sent temperatures 20 percent above the maximum allowed for the installation.
SEVILLE, Spain (Reuters) - The United Nations' nuclear watchdog on Wednesday praised Spain's regulator but recommended stepping up efforts to find a permanent site for dumping spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste.
Urich Schmocker, head of an International Atomic Energy Agency mission to Spain, said building a central storage facility was just an interim solution.
MADRID, Oct 31 (Reuters) - Spain's 1,000 megawatt Vandellos II nuclear power station was working at about 30 percent of capacity on Friday morning after being reconnected to the grid on Thursday afternoon, technicians said.
The Iberdrola-owned plant near the northeastern port of Tarragona had been halted since one of its generators caught fire on Aug. 24.
MADRID, Nov 2 (Reuters) - European Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs will propose a new EU-wide energy regulator with equal powers to national regulators and will push for greater independence for those state watchdogs, he said on Sunday.
"I am going to propose a new regulation both for national regulators, to increase their real independence and their capacity to intervene, and a new Agency of European Regulators, which has to have powers comparable with national regulators," Piebalgs told the Sunday edition of Spanish newspaper ABC.
