Planned outage at Sweden's Ringhals Unit 4 extended to November 30

The planned maintenance outage at Unit 4 of Sweden's Ringhals nuclear power plant will be extended to November 30 due to the need for additional cleaning work on site.

During the planned maintenance outage at Ringhals Unit 3, inspectors discovered rubber residue in parts of the component cooling system. The rubber residue originated from leaking valves within the system. The cleaning work is a preventive measure aimed at avoiding reduced cooling performance or component damage.

Sven-Anders Andersson stated that the valve replacement work had originally been scheduled for the coming years, but the rubber degradation exceeded expectations. He said: “We deeply regret the extended outage, but safety and equipment condition remain our top priorities.”

As a preventive measure, Ringhals Unit 4 was shut down on June 30, pending inspections during the annual maintenance outage that began on August 19. Under the latest schedule, the unit is expected to restart on November 30.

Ringhals Unit 3 has been offline since May 4 and is expected to return to service on October 31 following the completion of annual maintenance and rubber residue cleaning work.