Five of Belgium’s seven reactors at the Doel and Tihange nuclear plants are currently offline to enable “necessary technical work” to be carried out, the Federal Agency for Nuclear Control (Fanc) confirmed on 20 September.
Units 1 and 2 at Doel were stopped because of a cooling system leak. The others units are closed to investigate concrete degradation. Fanc said analysis of the concrete was being carried out at Doel 4 and Tihange 2 after the initial checks had found ageing problems. In 2017 specialists had also discovered degradation of the concrete quality at Tihange 3 and Doel 3. Tihange 3 remains closed, but Doel 3 has since been repaired and restarted.
The concrete degradation at Tihange 2 and Doel 4 was discovered in the ceilings of bunkerised buildings that house backup safety systems for the plants, Fanc said. An analysis is being carried out to make a precise diagnosis of the problem before repair work begins. The buildings house safety equipment including emergency pumps and diesel generators.
The two power plants have a total capacity close to 6000MWe and supply some 50% of the electricity used in Belgium, according to the operator Engie Electrabel.
