Paks Nuclear Power Plant
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The Paks Nuclear Power Plant ( hu, Paksi atomerőmű), located from the small town of
Paks Paks is a small town in Tolna county, in the south of Hungary, on the right bank of the Danube River, 100 km south of Budapest. Paks as a former agricultural settlement is now the home of the only Hungarian nuclear power plant, which provi ...
, central
Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
, is the first and only operating
nuclear power station A nuclear power plant (NPP) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power stations, heat is used to generate steam that drives a steam turbine connected to a generator that produces elec ...
in Hungary. In 2019, its four reactors produced more than 50% of Hungary's electricity production.


Technical parameters

VVER The water-water energetic reactor (WWER), or VVER (from russian: водо-водяной энергетический реактор; transliterates as ; ''water-water power reactor'') is a series of pressurized water reactor designs originally de ...
is the Soviet designation for a
pressurized water reactor A pressurized water reactor (PWR) is a type of light-water reactor, light-water nuclear reactor. PWRs constitute the large majority of the world's nuclear power plants (with notable exceptions being the UK, Japan and Canada). In a PWR, the primary ...
. The number following VVER, in this case 440, represents the power output of the original design. The VVER-440 Model V213 was a product of the first uniform safety requirements drawn up by the Soviet designers. This model includes added emergency core cooling and
auxiliary feedwater Auxiliary feedwater is a backup water supply system found in pressurized water reactor nuclear power plants (PWRs). This system, sometimes known as emergency feedwater, can be used to cool the reactor, if normal feedwater to the steam generators f ...
systems as well as upgraded accident localization systems. Each reactor contains 42 tons of lightly enriched
uranium dioxide Uranium dioxide or uranium(IV) oxide (), also known as urania or uranous oxide, is an oxide of uranium, and is a black, radioactive, crystalline powder that naturally occurs in the mineral uraninite. It is used in nuclear fuel rods in nuclear rea ...
fuel. Fuel takes on average three years to be used (or "burned") in the reactors; after this the fuel rods are stored for five years in an adjacent cooling pond before being removed from the site for permanent disposal. The power plant is nearly 100% owned by state-owned power wholesaler Magyar Villamos Művek. A few shares are held by local municipalities, while a voting preference or "golden" share is held by the Hungarian government. One brand-new
reactor pressure vessel A reactor pressure vessel (RPV) in a nuclear power plant is the pressure vessel containing the nuclear reactor coolant, core shroud, and the reactor core. Classification of nuclear power reactors Russian Soviet era RBMK reactors have each fuel ...
was bought from
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
after the
Żarnowiec Nuclear Power Plant The Żarnowiec Nuclear Power Plant ( pl, Elektrownia Jądrowa Żarnowiec) was to be the first nuclear power plant in Poland.''A Country Study: Poland'', Library of Congress, Call Number DK4040 .P57 199/ref> The construction was cancelled due ...
project was abandoned in 1990.


Lifetime extension

In 2000, the Paks Nuclear Power Plant commissioned a feasibility study which concluded that the plant may remain in operation for another 20 years beyond the original 30-year design lifetime. The study was updated in 2005 with similar conclusions. In November 2005, Hungary's Parliament passed a resolution with overwhelming bipartisan majority to support the lifetime extension. The feasibility study concluded that the non-replaceable parts are in sufficient condition to remain in operation for another 20 years while a minority of replaceable parts needed replacement or refurbishment. The power generator made repeated surveys of public opinion on the lifetime extension and concluded that support for the decision hovered near 70%. Following the
Fukushima I nuclear accidents The was a nuclear accident in 2011 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima, Japan. The proximate cause of the disaster was the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which occurred on the afternoon of 11 March 2011 ...
in March 2011, Hungary's government said it would conduct a stress test on the Paks Nuclear Power Plant to assess safety, but it would not abandon plans for lifetime extension and it would also go ahead with plans for its expansion. Unit 1 was granted a license-extension to 2032 in 2012, unit 2 to 2034 in 2014, and unit 3 to 2036 in 2016. Unit 4 got its license extended till 2037 in 2017. The nine
Ganz The Ganz Works or Ganz ( or , ''Ganz companies'', formerly ''Ganz and Partner Iron Mill and Machine Factory'') was a group of companies operating between 1845 and 1949 in Budapest, Hungary. It was named after Ábrahám Ganz, the founder and th ...
power generators will be serviced by
Alstom Alstom SA is a French multinational rolling stock manufacturer operating worldwide in rail transport markets, active in the fields of passenger transportation, signalling, and locomotives, with products including the AGV, TGV, Eurostar, Avelia ...
once per year between 2013 and 2021.


Power uprating

Thanks to optimizations, modernization and
fuel A fuel is any material that can be made to react with other substances so that it releases energy as thermal energy or to be used for work. The concept was originally applied solely to those materials capable of releasing chemical energy but ...
upgrades, it was possible to safely increase the output power of the Unit 4 reactor to 500 MWe in 2006, followed by Unit 1 in 2007. With upgrades to the remaining two units the plant's power generation reached 2000 MWe in 2009.


New nuclear units

On 30 March 2009 the
National Assembly of Hungary The National Assembly ( hu, Országgyűlés, lit=Country Assembly) is the parliament of Hungary. The unicameral body consists of 199 (386 between 1990 and 2014) members elected to 4-year terms. Election of members is done using a semi-proporti ...
gave its principal consent by votes 330 for, 6 against and 10 abstentions to the preparation works of the possible new units. On 26 February 2010 the owner state company
MVM Group MVM Group (Magyar Villamos Művek Zártkörűen működő Részvénytársaság, literally: ''Hungarian Electrical Works Private Limited Company'') is a Hungarian power company, the only one in the country responsible for the production, distribut ...
decided the expansion with about 2 trillion
Hungarian Forint The forint (sign Ft; code HUF) is the currency of Hungary. It was formerly divided into 100 fillér, but fillér coins are no longer in circulation. The introduction of the forint on 1 August 1946 was a crucial step in the post-World War II stabi ...
s price. On 18 June 2012 the
Hungarian government The Government of Hungary ( hu, Magyarország Kormánya) exercises executive power in Hungary. It is led by the Prime Minister, and is composed of various ministers. It is the principal organ of public administration. The Prime Minister (''miniszt ...
ranked Paks expansion as a "high priority project of the national economy", in this context established a committee (Nuclear Power Governmental Committee) for preparation of the factual steps. The Nuclear Power Governmental Committee is headed by
Viktor Orbán Viktor Mihály Orbán (; born 31 May 1963) is a Hungarian politician who has served as prime minister of Hungary since 2010, previously holding the office from 1998 to 2002. He has presided over Fidesz since 1993, with a brief break between 20 ...
(Prime Minister) and has two members;
Mihály Varga Mihály Varga (born 26 January 1965) is a Hungarian politician, current Minister of Finance (previously Minister of National Economy) since 2013. He also served as Minister of Finance between 2001 and 2002. He has been a member of Fidesz since t ...
(Minister of National Economy) and
Zsuzsanna Németh Lászlóné Németh or Zsuzsanna Németh ( née ''Zsuzsanna Serényi''; born 16 July 1953 in Budapest), Hungarian politician and economist, who served as Minister of National Development in Viktor Orbán's government between 23 December 2011 and ...
(National Developmental Minister). As of 2016, Hungary is said to import 30% of its electricity. According to the agreement signed by
Zsuzsanna Németh Lászlóné Németh or Zsuzsanna Németh ( née ''Zsuzsanna Serényi''; born 16 July 1953 in Budapest), Hungarian politician and economist, who served as Minister of National Development in Viktor Orbán's government between 23 December 2011 and ...
(National Developmental Minister of Hungary) and
Sergey Kiriyenko Sergey Vladilenovich Kiriyenko (''né'' ''Izraitel''; russian: Серге́й Владиле́нович Кирие́нко; born 26 July 1962) is a Russian politician who has served as First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administra ...
(Rosatom chairman) on 14 January 2014 Paks Nuclear Power Plant will be expanded by the Russian state company
Rosatom Rosatom, ( rus, Росатом, p=rɐsˈatəm}) also known as Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation, the State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom or Rosatom State Corporation, is a Russian state corporation headquartered in Moscow that speciali ...
. Eighty percent of the project's cost will be financed with a 10 billion
Euro The euro ( symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . ...
credit line from Russia. Subject to European Commission approval, construction of two
VVER-1200 The water-water energetic reactor (WWER), or VVER (from russian: водо-водяной энергетический реактор; transliterates as ; ''water-water power reactor'') is a series of pressurized water reactor designs originally de ...
reactors was planned to start in 2019. On 6 March 2017, the European Commission announced its approval.
János Süli János Süli (born 26 January 1956) is a Hungarian electrical engineer, business executive and politician. He served as CEO of the Paks Nuclear Power Plant from 2009 to 2010, and the mayor of Paks from 2014 to 2017. On 2 May 2017, he was appoint ...
, former CEO of the nuclear power station, was appointed
Minister without Portfolio A minister without portfolio is either a government minister with no specific responsibilities or a minister who does not head a particular ministry. The sinecure is particularly common in countries ruled by coalition governments and a cabinet w ...
in the
Third Orbán Government The third government of Viktor Orbán was the Government of Hungary between 6 June 2014 and 18 May 2018. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán formed his third cabinet after his party-alliance, Fidesz and its coalition partner, Christian Democratic People ...
in May 2017, responsible for the planning, construction and commissioning of the two new blocks at Paks Nuclear Power Plant. On 20 June 2019 the Paks II. Zrt. (Paks II. Ltd.) reported on their website that the preparation of the construction site has started including more than 80 service buildings. On 30 June 2020 the application for the construction license has been submitted to the Hungarian nuclear regulatory authority. On 26 August 2022, the regulator issued the license, and construction was expected to start within a few weeks, with completion planned for 2032.


Reactor data


Incidents


Major incidents (INES >0)


2003 incident (INES 3)

An
INES Ines or INES may refer to: People * Ines (name), a feminine given name, also written as Inés or Inês * Saint Ines or Agnes (), Roman virgin–martyr * Eda-Ines Etti (stage name: ''Ines''; born 1981), Estonian singer Places * Doña Ines, a vo ...
level 3 event ("serious incident") occurred on 10 April 2003 at the Unit 2 reactor. The incident occurred in the fuel rod cleaning system located under of water in a cleaning tank next to the spent fuel cooling pond, located adjacent to the reactor in the reactor hall. The reactor had been shut down for its annual refueling and maintenance period on 28 March and its fuel elements removed. The cleaning system had been installed to remove dirt and corrosion from fuel elements and control rods during shutdown, as there had previously been problems with
magnetite Magnetite is a mineral and one of the main iron ores, with the chemical formula Fe2+Fe3+2O4. It is one of the oxides of iron, and is ferrimagnetic; it is attracted to a magnet and can be magnetized to become a permanent magnet itself. With the ...
corrosion products from the
steam generators A steam generator is a form of low water-content boiler, similar to a flash steam boiler. The usual construction is as a spiral coil of water-tube, arranged as a single, or monotube, coil. Circulation is once-through and pumped under pressure, ...
being deposited on the fuel elements which affected the flow of coolant. The sixth set of thirty partially spent elements were in the tank having been cleaned, the cleaning having finished at 16:00. At 21:50, radiation alarms mounted on the cleaning system detected a sudden increase in the amount of
krypton-85 Krypton-85 (85Kr) is a radioisotope of krypton. Krypton-85 has a half-life of 10.756 years and a maximum decay energy of 687 keV. It decays into stable rubidium-85. Its most common decay (99.57%) is by beta particle emission with maximum energy ...
. The suspicion was that one of the fuel rod assemblies was leaking. At 22:30, the reactor hall was evacuated because of elevated radiation levels both there and in the ventilation stack. At 02:15 the following morning, the hydraulic lock of the cleaning vessel lid was released, and immediately the dose rate increased significantly (6-12
millisievert The sievert (symbol: SvNot be confused with the sverdrup or the svedberg, two non-SI units that sometimes use the same symbol.) is a unit in the International System of Units (SI) intended to represent the stochastic health risk of ionizing radi ...
s/hour) around the spent fuel pond and the pool containing the cleaning machine, and the water level dropped for a short time, by about . Water samples from the pond showed contamination due to damaged fuel rods. The lid on the cleaning machine was winched up at 04:20, but one of the three lifting cables attached to it broke; and it was not finally removed until 16 April. The incident was initially given an
INES Ines or INES may refer to: People * Ines (name), a feminine given name, also written as Inés or Inês * Saint Ines or Agnes (), Roman virgin–martyr * Eda-Ines Etti (stage name: ''Ines''; born 1981), Estonian singer Places * Doña Ines, a vo ...
rating of 2 ("incident"). However a video examination of the damaged fuel elements following the successful removal of the lid caused the rating to be raised to 3 ("serious incident"). This revealed that cladding on the majority of the 30 fuel elements had been broken, with radioactive spent uranium fuel pellets spilling from the elements into the bottom of the cleaning tank. Apart from the release of radioactive material, a concern was that the accumulation of a compact mass of fuel pellets could lead to a
criticality accident A criticality accident is an accidental uncontrolled nuclear fission chain reaction. It is sometimes referred to as a critical excursion, critical power excursion, or divergent chain reaction. Any such event involves the unintended accumulation ...
, as the pellets were in a tank of neutron moderating water. Water containing neutron absorbing
boric acid Boric acid, more specifically orthoboric acid, is a compound of boron, oxygen, and hydrogen with formula . It may also be called hydrogen borate or boracic acid. It is usually encountered as colorless crystals or a white powder, that dissolves ...
was added into the tank to raise its concentration to 16 g/kg to prevent this.
Ammonia Ammonia is an inorganic compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula . A stable binary hydride, and the simplest pnictogen hydride, ammonia is a colourless gas with a distinct pungent smell. Biologically, it is a common nitrogenous was ...
and
hydrazine Hydrazine is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula . It is a simple pnictogen hydride, and is a colourless flammable liquid with an ammonia-like odour. Hydrazine is highly toxic unless handled in solution as, for example, hydrazine ...
were also added to the water to help with the removal of radioactive
iodine-131 Iodine-131 (131I, I-131) is an important radioisotope of iodine discovered by Glenn Seaborg and John Livingood in 1938 at the University of California, Berkeley. It has a radioactive decay half-life of about eight days. It is associated with nuc ...
. An investigation by the Hungarian Atomic Energy Agency concluded that the cause of the incident was inadequate cooling of the fuel elements, which were heated due to the radioactive decay of short-lived
fission product Nuclear fission products are the atomic fragments left after a large atomic nucleus undergoes nuclear fission. Typically, a large nucleus like that of uranium fissions by splitting into two smaller nuclei, along with a few neutrons, the release ...
s. These were kept cool by water circulated by a submerged
water pump A pump is a device that moves fluids (liquids or gases), or sometimes slurries, by mechanical action, typically converted from electrical energy into hydraulic energy. Pumps can be classified into three major groups according to the method they u ...
. However the cooling was inadequate, leading to the damage to some elements through a build-up of steam around them, depriving them of most of their cooling. The investigation proposed that the severe damage probably occurred when the lid was released, causing
thermal shock Thermal shock is a type of rapidly transient mechanical load. By definition, it is a mechanical load caused by a rapid change of temperature of a certain point. It can be also extended to the case of a thermal gradient, which makes different par ...
to cladding because of the sudden entry of cool water into the system, and explosive steam production. One of the interesting results of the investigation was that the Hungarian Atomic Agency had placed too much trust in the technology and knowledge of the French
Framatome Framatome () is a French nuclear reactor business. It is owned by Électricité de France (EDF) (75.5%), Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (19.5%), and Assystem (5%). The company first formed in 1958 to license Westinghouse's pressurized water reacto ...
Company. The agency did not investigate documentation provided by the company deeply enough, missing a fatal design flaw in the Framatome-designed, produced, and operated cleaning equipment. The discharge of radioactive gases through the stack continued for several days after the incident, although the Hungarian Atomic Energy Agency determined that the radiation levels adjacent to the plant were only about 10% above normal. However, the reactor remained out of service for over a year, finally resuming commercial electricity production in September 2004. The damaged fuel was completely removed by the end of 2006 and in 2014 transported to Russia for final disposal.


2005 incident (INES 1)

On 9 April 2005, Unit 1 was shut down for planned maintenance. The defect that occurred during the cooling of the block was classified as INES grade 1 (abnormality), although the power plant originally requested a zero rating.


2009 outage incident (INES 2)

A Self Powered Neutron Detector (SPND) was dropped when the wire rope holding it broke during an outage on 4 May 2009. The event was rated as INES 2. All staff were safely evacuated, and no member was exposed to more than the permitted daily radiation dose.


2012 incident (INES 1)

On 6 September 2012, scheduled work was done on a gate, but the required written instructions were not completed in time. This is an administrative mismatch was classified as 1 in the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES).


Incidents below the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES)

Malfunctions (operational events) below the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES) are published quarterly by the MVM Paks Nuclear Power Plant. According to IAEA, these mean no risk, yet a part of these resulted in partial or complete block shutdowns.


2016 incident

On the morning of 14 July 2016 reactor 1 was automatically shut down due to an equipment malfunction, which did not pose any safety threat. The reactor was brought back to full capacity the afternoon of the following day with the malfunction to be reviewed by the national regulator. The shut down came one week after a separate malfunction of a generator forced the plant to reduce its power output.


See also

*
Energy in Hungary Energy in Hungary describes energy and electricity production, consumption and import in Hungary. Energy policy of Hungary describes the politics of Hungary related to energy. Statistics Nuclear power Hungary had, in 2017, four operating nuc ...
* Nuclear energy in Hungary


References


External links


Paks Nuclear Power Plant website (English version)
{{authority control Nuclear power stations in Hungary Nuclear power stations using VVER reactors Nuclear power stations using pressurized water reactors Government-owned companies of Hungary Hungary–Soviet Union relations Hungary–Russia relations