5 Jun (NucNet): A leak of coolant from the primary circuit of Slovenia’s Krsko nuclear power plant, which led to a controlled shut-down of the plant yesterday, has been provisionally rated as level 0 on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES).
An INES rating of 0 means “deviation with no safety significance”. The INES report* about the incident, published today, said the leak at the single-unit Krsko was detected at 15.07 local time and the plant was shut down at 20.10.
The leakage, at a rate of about 3 cubic metres per hour, exceeded the plant’s technical specifications and was declared as an “unusual event” by the Slovenian Nuclear Safety Administration (SNSA).
SNSA told the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) Incident & Emergency Centre yesterday that there was no release of radiation to the environment. Plant safety systems functioned normally and the loss of coolant was controlled by the charging flow, the INES report added.
Plant personnel who entered the reactor’s containment for an initial examination of the incident discovered that the leak was near a reactor coolant pump. The exact location of the leak is still being investigated.
Krsko is a 676-megawatt Westinghouse-design pressurised water reactor (PWR) located near Slovenia’s border with Croatia and has been in operation since 1983. The plant is jointly owned by the two countries.
*The INES report is available in the ‘events’ section of the IAEA's Nuclear Events Web Based System (www-news.iaea.org/news).
– by John Shepherd
