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Concept
Fessenheim Nuclear Power Plant
Summary
The Fessenheim Nuclear Power Plant is located in the Fessenheim commune in the Haut-Rhin department in Grand Est in north-eastern France, north east of the Mulhouse urban area, within of the border with Germany, and approximately from Switzerland. Unit 1 was closed in February 2020 and unit 2 on 29 June 2020.
The Fessenheim plant has two pressurized water reactors, which each generated 920 MWe. Construction at Fessenheim began in 1970 and the plant was commissioned in 1977. It is built alongside the Grand Canal d'Alsace, a canal channelling the Upper Rhine river, from which it drew of cooling water annually.
The plant employed around 700 staff and 200 contractors, and indirectly supports a further 600 to 2,000 people during maintenance operations. The plant contributed around 16,000,000 euro in tax to the various local authorities, including providing the commune of Fessenheim with 70% of its revenue.
In October 2009 the plant's third 10-yearly inspection on reactor 1 began, in advance of a decision on whether the plant could continue to operate for a further decade. A full decision was made in 2011, with permission to operate reactor 1 given. Reactor 1 was permanently shut down on February 22, 2020. The second reactor was inspected in mid April 2011. The local Information and Oversight Commission asked GSIEN to conduct a parallel independent inspection alongside the official inspection by the Nuclear Safety Authority. Reactor 2 shut down on 29 June 2020.
On April 9, 2014, a tank on the non-nuclear equipment cooling system was accidentally overfilled due to incorrect level indicators. As the overflow drain pipe on this tank was blocked near ground level and could not drain the overflow water as designed, the overflowing water from this tank backed up through multiple other pipes and eventually began overflowing into a room next to Unit 1's control room. The failure of several supposedly water-tight seals between floors allowed the leaking water to descend into lower levels, eventually encountering and shorting out electrical equipment used for some of the nuclear control systems.
Official source
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