One of two nuclear reactors at the Hartlepool Nuclear Power Station in the United Kingdom is offline. EDF, the plant operators stated Reactor Number 2 was “Manually shut down following an electrical system fault.”
BRITAIN’S HARTLEPOOL 2 NUCLEAR REACTOR HAS GONE OFFLINE-NATIONAL GRID DATA
— First Squawk (@FirstSquawk) April 4, 2023
While two other reactors of the nine that EDF operates amongst their five stations are offline due to scheduled maintenance, this outage was not planned. It is not currently clear what impact this will have to the nearly 1.5 million homes that Hartlepool powers.
The station is of the advanced gas-cooled reactor (AGR) type. It provides electricity for over 3% of the UK using two 1,575 MWth advanced gas-cooled reactors to power two generators (590 MWe + 595 MWe), giving a maximum generating capacity of 1,320 MW. The station’s designed net electrical output is 1,185 MW. This is enough electricity to power 1.5 million homes. There are four 17.5 MW auxiliary gas turbines on the site, these had first been commissioned in October 1973. Reactor 1 continues to produce 580MW which is within normal operating range compared to the other plants.