ARCHIVED - Unexpected fault leads to emergency shutdown at Tarragona nuclear power plant
The incident at the plant in Catalonia luckily didn't affect workers, the public or the environment, and was classed as 'of no safety significance'.
The Nuclear Safety Council (CSN) has reported an automatic shutdown of the reactor at Tarragona's Ascó I nuclear power plant on Monday night due to a minor unexpected incident.
A feed valve to a steam generator closed unexpectedly, causing a chain reaction of shutdowns in the turbopumps and turbine, the CSN explained in a note. This in turn led systems to kick in automatically and carry out an emergency shutdown of the reactor when its power went over 34 per cent, thus avoiding putting workers, the public or the environment at risk.
All the security systems worked perfectly, the CSN said, and the plant is currently in mode 3 (hot shutdown) with the reactor shut down and average coolant temperature at nominal values.
The incident has been classed as Level 0 or below scale on the INES (International Nuclear Event Scale).
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