24 May (NucNet): Swedish nuclear plant owner Vattenfall is planning to operate its newest nuclear reactor units at Forsmark and Ringhals for up to 60 years thanks to an extensive upgrade programme.
The company said “the technical and economic preconditions” exist for it to operate its two oldest units, Ringhals-1 and -2, for 50 years and its five other units, Ringhals-3 and -4 and Forsmark 1-3, for up to 60 years.
Vattenfall is a majority owner of the Forsmark and Ringhals nuclear power plants. Their seven nuclear reactors started commercial operation between 1975 and 1985.
Vattenfall, Forsmark and Ringhals will now examine the investments needed to operate nuclear power safely and profitably for up to 60 years,” a statement said.
Torbjörn Wahlborg, head of business division nuclear power, said: “This does not mean a decision on decommissioning at a specific date, it’s a matter of planning, of determining the basis for calculating the investments needed for a specific total operating time.”
Mr Wahlborg said Vattenfall is carrying out “the most extensive modernisation programme in the history of Swedish nuclear power” and the company is planning to invest about 1.8 billion euro (2.4 billion US dollars) over a five-year period between 2013 and 2017.
From a technical standpoint, the modernisation process will lay the way to operating these plants for many more decades to come, he said.
In August 2012 Vattenfall submitted an application to the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority (SSM) for permission to build and operate one or two new nuclear reactors.
The company said no investment decision has been made and the application is part of a long process aimed at determining how existing nuclear should be replaced when a possible phase-out of existing reactors begins in the latter half of the 2020s.
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