Mechanical Failure Knocks Out Argentina's Largest Nuclear Power Plant

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The 745-megawatt (MW) Atucha II Nuclear Power Plant, located in the province of Buenos Aires in Argentina, is out of service for an undetermined amount of time due to a reactor mechanical failure.

The pressurized water reactor (PWR) was manually shuttered in October 2022 due to failures detected in the steam turbine; during inspections it was determined that one of the reactor's four internal supports was loose and had fallen to the bottom of the vessel.

After further inspections and analysis, the unit remains offline.

Nucleoelectrica Argentina S.A. (NA-SA), the owner and operator of the plant, is evaluating possible solutions: either remove the support piece from the vessel and continue running the unit with the three remaining supports; or, weld the piece back to its position. In the first scenario, the plant would be offline at least through July; the outage would last much longer, even into the first months of 2024, if NA-SA opts to put the support back in position. Subscribers to Industrial Info's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) Power plant database can click here for the plant profile.

Given that Atucha II represents 3% of Argentina's power generation capacity, and NA-SA plans to start a major life extension project at the adjacent 362-MW Atucha I Power Plant in 2024, the company is preparing technical documentation to demonstrate the safety and convenience of running the Atucha II reactor with just three supports. Subscribers can click here for the Atucha I plant profile.

NA-SA proposes to cut a section of the Atucha II vessel, remove the loose part with a mechanical arm and reinforce the welding of the remaining supports. According to the company's technicians; the support pegs are redundant and running the reactor with three instead of four supports won't have any impact in terms of safety or performance.

Argentina's Nuclear Regulatory Authority will make the final decision.

Besides the two plants at Atucha Complex, Argentina has a third nuclear plant in the province of Cordoba; the 656-MW Embalse Power Plant, with a CANDU-type reactor. Subscribers can click here for the Embalse Power Plant profile.

Also, Argentina is negotiating with China to provide financial and technical support for a new 1.3-gigawatt (GW) nuclear plant at the Atucha complex, using Hualong One technology. The finalization of the contract was expected by the end of 2022, but was rescheduled for almost a year later. As a result, construction on the new plant will not kick off before 2024. Subscribers can click here for the project report and click here for the related plant profile.

Finally, Argentina's Atomic Energy National Commission (CNEA), with state-owned technology developer INVAP S.E., is in the final stages of constructing the CAREM-25 project, a 32-MW, small-scale reactor at the Atucha Complex. Subscribers can click here for the project report and click here for the related plant profile.

Subscribers can click here for all projects reference in this article and click here for the related plant profiles.

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