British Energy says Scotland’s Hunterston unit 3 should be back online shortly after an anomalous temperature reading on Sunday 10 June led to a manual shutdown.
Hunterston B’s unit 3, an AGR, was in the process of having its load raised to 70% when a temperature reading from a monitor on top of the reactor was higher than expected for that stage.
Operators took the decision to shut down the reactor manually and the cause has been investigated throughout the week.
A spokeswoman for British Energy said they expect the reactor to be restarted shortly.
Previously, British Energy received permission from the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate to restart Hunterston unit 3 on 21 May 2007 with a safety case that specifies the unit can run up to 70% of full capacity.
This followed shutdown for inspection, repair and preparation of safety cases related to boiler tube cracking problems, which also affected Hunterston B unit 4 and Hinkley Point B units 3 and 4, in England.
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