Prolonged hot weather across much of Europe has caused a sharp drop in the water level of the Danube River, forcing Romania to shut down its only nuclear power plant. This was reported by infohub.kz.
The Cernavodă plant, whose two reactors produce about 20% of Romania's electricity, is not expected to be restarted within the next 10 days. Earlier this week, authorities tried to increase the water flow to the plant, which uses Danube water for cooling, by sinking barges loaded with rocks in the river.
Neighboring Hungary has so far avoided a shutdown of its only nuclear plant in Paks, which also uses the Danube. The water level in Europe's second-longest river has fallen to the lowest levels in 30 years in several countries.
The second of the two 706-megawatt reactors at Cernavodă was disconnected from Romania's electricity grid just before midday on Thursday. Plant director Romeo Urjan told AFP that no restart is planned within the next 10 days. The first reactor had already been shut down in July.
Until now, Cernavodă had only been shut down once before, in 2003. The shortfall in power is usually covered by solar and wind during hot, windy daytime hours, but in the evenings, traditional coal- and gas-fired generation will have to be supplemented by imports.
Romania also has huge hydropower capacity, although it has been significantly reduced by the same low water levels that caused the nuclear shutdown. In Hungary, Prime Minister Péter Magyar warned last month that the Soviet-era Paks plant, which has four nuclear reactors, could be forced to shut down entirely for the first time.
Plant officials said that the water level in the Danube was so low that the suction nozzles used to take in water could not reach it.