The Heysham 2 nuclear power station - owned by troubled generator British Energy - was shut down last night. It is believed that the closure is due to an electrical fault in the plant's nuclear reactor. BE were unable to state how long the plant will be closed. With their Torness plant already closed, and scheduled outages of other reactors, at least one third of BE's nuclear generating capacity is now currently down.
Greenpeace wrote to the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate on 21st August calling for an immediate shutdown of Heysham 2 following growing concern over technical problems with the gas circulator fans that cool the nuclear reactors.
The closure of Heysham 2 will further deepen the problems faced by BE, which could incur punitive imbalance charges levied under NETA regulations (1).
Greenpeace campaigner Iain McSeveny said: 'Just when you thought things couldn't get worse for the nuclear industry, another of their stations shuts down. This company is blaming the new electricity trading system for its woeful financial performance, but in reality it is the unreliable, unsafe and uneconomic nature of nuclear power that is at the root of the problem. The closure of Heysham is the latest in a long line of failures for this industry.'
Notes for editors:
(1) NETA (New Electricity Trading Agreement) regulations specify that punitive imbalance charges are levied if a generator fails to produce the amount of electricity it is contracted to generate.
