Neckarwestheim Nuclear Power Station: Block II Back on the Grid after Revision

Karlsruhe/Neckarwestheim. Block II of the Neckarwestheim nuclear power station (GKN II) has been back on the grid since Saturdax, 13th October at 19:00 after the annual revision. Testing and servicing work has been carried out in the past weeks, technical projects have been implemented and fuel elements have been replaced. During the revision, around 1200 additional employees from manufacturing and specialised companies have supported the nuclear power station revision crew. The whole team managed to complete around 3000 individual tasks.

"Current knowledge from Fukushima has also been implemented in this year's revision. This means that fundamental points, listed in the Ministry for the Environment's action plan, have already been considered in planning the revision, have been implemented and the effectiveness of measures successfully tested," explains Christoph Heil, Technical Director of the Neckarwestheim nuclear power station.

The revision program has been successfully implemented

"The implementation of our program of tasks worked very well", sums up Gerd-Josef Engel, Manager of Block II. "We are proud that no accidents at work occurred throughout the whole revision despite the extensive servicing and testing measures in combination with a large number of additional external personnel".

The revision work took place under the supervision of the Baden-Württemberg Ministry for the Environment, Climate and Energy Management and was accompanied by ministry auditors from TÜV and KeTAG (Baden-Württemberg auditors consortium for nuclear technology). After approval of the work, the Ministry agreed to the facility being restarted.

Block II of the Neckarwestheim nuclear power station is a pressurised water reactor with an electrical output of 1,400 megawatts. The facility went into operation in 1989 and produced more than eleven billion kilowatt hours of electricity in the year 2011.