Unplanned Outage Hits U.K.'s Heysham 1 Nuclear Plant

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--One of the two nuclear reactors at the Heysham 1 nuclear facility near Morecombe, which is on the northwest coast of England, has suffered an unplanned outage. There is no indication as to when the reactor will be brought back online.

EDF Energy (London, England), the U.K. arm of French utility Electricite de France S.A. (EPA:EDF) (Paris), announced that the reactor was taken offline due to an unplanned outage and that repairs are under way. There is no information on what caused the outage, but the company has been quick to quash rumours that the plant was a victim of the Stuxnet computer virus, which has been shown to effect Siemen's S7 infrastructure control software. EDF said that S7 is not in use at Heysham 1, but declined to comment on the exact nature of the fault. EDF said that the outage has no safety ramifications.

Heysham 1 has two reactors capable of generating 1,160 megawatts (MW), which is enough power for more than 1.5 million homes.

The Heysham 1 shutdown comes a month after EDF's Sizewell B nuclear power plant, which is on the Suffolk coast in southeast England, was brought back online after a six-month outage caused by safety concerns. For related news, see October 5, 2010, article - Sizewell B Nuclear Power Plant Back Online.

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