Cernavoda’s Unit 2 supplies first MWh to national energy system

Cernavoda Nuclear Power Plant’s Unit 2 was connected to the national energy system for the first time at 5:21 p.m. on Tuesday, as part of tests ahead of commissioning, and it supplied the first Megawatt/hour to the network, National Company Nuclearelectrica SA said in a release to Rompres.

The first connection to the energy system was made at 25 percent of the reactor’s 700 MWh nominal power. For this phase to be attained, the Romanian, Canadian, Italian and U.S. staff involved in carrying out the project successfully completed all the activities and tests marking the preparatory moves for commissioning the facility. The inspectors of the National Commission on the Control of Nuclear Activities (CNCAN) tightly controlled the conduct of those activities and certified the quality of the works and the fulfilment of all the requirements for increasing the power of the nuclear reactor.

At the next phase, the reactor’s power is to be gradually raised to 50 percent, 75 percent and 100 percent, with the programme of activities approved by the CNCAN to be implemented at each of the percentages.

The commercial commissioning of Unit 2 scheduled for the end of this September and the resulting increase in the nuclear energy share to 17-18 percent of the Romanian energy output will have immediate effects on the energy system’s stability and on keeping the electricity tariffs for the population unchanged.

Unit 2 has been built on the basis of a contract on works management signed by Romania with Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd and ANSALDO-Italia in 2003. The CANDU 6 reactor that equips Unit 2 is the second of this kind at the Cernavoda Nuclear Power Plant; Unit 1 has been operating successfully since being commissioned in 1996. ROMPRES