Hungary’s only nuclear plant, Paks, which accounts for about half of the country’s electricity generation, has had to reduce the output of three of its four reactor blocks due to the prolonged heatwave, the plant’s operating company announced.
“On Aug. 21, 2024, the water temperature of the Danube reached 29.79 degrees Celsius at the measurement section of the Paks Nuclear Power Plant,” the company wrote in a statement.
“Therefore the load of the reactors will be reduced on units 1, 2 and 4 from 15:00: bloc one to 35 MW, bloc 2 to 110 MW and bloc four to 95 MW,” it added.
This is significantly below the nominal capacity of the reactor blocs, which is 500 MW for each of the four blocs, following upgrades in the early 2000s from the original 475 MW per unit.
In comparison, on the previous day the four blocs had outputs of 437, 379 and 485 and 376 MW respectively. The company pointed out that these are scheduled events and do not constitute emergencies.
The Soviet VVER 440 nuclear plant was built between 1974 and 1979 and now its four reactors have a combined output of 2,000 MW, which is scheduled to be increased by two reactors of 1,200 MW each by 2032 in an extension consisting of two VVER 1200 units, done by Rosatom.
