Sweden's Ringhals 4 nuclear reactor faces further delay

Swedish utility Vattenfall said on Friday it had delayed the restart of the Ringhals 4 nuclear reactor by around three weeks to Feb. 23, in a further setback to power supply in the Nordic and Baltic region. Vattenfall said in September the reactor's pressure vessel, a radioactive component, had suffered damage during maintenance and would be out of commission until Jan. 31.

Swedish utility Vattenfall said on Friday it had delayed the restart of the Ringhals 4 nuclear reactor by around three weeks to Feb. 23, in a further setback to power supply in the Nordic and Baltic region.

Vattenfall said in September the reactor's pressure vessel, a radioactive component, had suffered damage during maintenance and would be out of commission until Jan. 31. "The repair in the pressurizer is proceeding," it said in a regulatory statement to the Nord Pool power exchange on Friday.

The company's new and "more detailed action plan" showed repairs would continue until Feb. 23, the company added. The extended outage at Ringhals 4, which has an installed capacity of 1,130 megawatts (MW), comes at a critical time as energy prices soar across Europe and countries scramble to ensure there is enough power output for the coming winter.

Vattenfall said in September the damage to the pressure vessel forced Ringhals to build a full-size mock-up of the 12-metre (39 feet) tall structure for training before repairs could take place. In neighbouring Finland, startup of regular production from the long-awaited Olkiluoto 3 nuclear power reactor was recently postponed until Jan. 22.

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