Civaux Nuclear Power Plant

Civaux Nuclear Power Plant
Civaux Nuclear Power Plant
Map
Official nameCentrale Nucléaire de Civaux
CountryFrance
LocationCivaux (Vienne)
Coordinates46°27′24″N 0°39′10″E / 46.45667°N 0.65278°E / 46.45667; 0.65278
StatusOperational
Construction beganOctober 15, 1988; 37 years ago (1988-10-15)
Commission dateJanuary 29, 2002; 23 years ago (2002-01-29)
OperatorEDF
Nuclear power station
Reactor typePWR
N4
Reactor supplierFramatome
Cooling towers2
Cooling sourceVienne River
Power generation
Units operational2 x 1561 MW
Make and modelAlstom
Nameplate capacity3,122 MW
Capacity factor78.5%
Annual net output21,458 GW·h
External links
WebsiteSite c/o EDF
CommonsRelated media on Commons
[edit on Wikidata]

The Civaux Nuclear Power Plant is located in the commune of Civaux (Vienne) at the edge of Vienne River between Confolens (60 km upstream) and Chauvigny (14 km downstream), and 44 km south-east of Poitiers.

It has two operating units that were the precursors to the European Pressurized Reactor, being the "N4 stage". Designed for a net power output of 1450 MWe per unit, power was uprated to 1500 MWe in 2010. The Civaux plant uses ambient air and water from the Vienne River for cooling.[1]

As of 2022, 1300 people work at the plant.[2]

The cooling towers of Civaux Nuclear Power Plant are 178 metres in height, which are the highest among those of EDF's nuclear power plants.[3]

Events

  • On 12 May 1998 there was a leak on an elbow in a pipe of the reactor coolant system. Water leaked out at the rate of 30 cubic meters per hour. It was classified as an INES level-2 event.
  • Civaux was a proposed target in the 1998 World Cup terror plot; it was planned that Armed Islamic Group terrorists would crash a hijacked aeroplane into the plant on 15 June 1998. The plot was foiled with a mass arrest of conspirators on 26 May.
  • In June 2001, following the first pressure test, the ASN published an incident report, classified as an INES level-1, due to a "leak in the containment building". The concrete in both the internal and external containment buildings was found to be cracked.[4][5]
  • In 2018, once repairs had been carried out, the ASN reported a lack of earthquake resistance in the electrical power supply panels of the Civaux 1 and 2 and Chooz 1 reactors, a defect detected by EDF in 2015 and 2016. This anomaly is classified as an INES level-1 for the Civaux reactors and level-0 for the Chooz reactor.[6][7]
  • In 2021, during the decennial safety inspection of reactor No. 1, which began in August, EDF detected stress corrosion cracks in the safety injection system of the primary circuit. Reactor No. 2 was shut down on 20 November for similar inspections, which revealed the same defect.[8][9] After repairs, Unit 1 was reconnected to the grid on 25 January 2023 and Unit 2 on 3 April 2023.[10]
  • On 2 November 2022, the decennial leak-tightness test of the primary circuit of Unit 1 was interrupted following a mechanical failure of a temporary device installed specifically for the test. The failure caused a depressurisation of the circuit and a flow of water into a room inside the reactor building. The event had no impact on the safety of the facility, as the reactor vessel contained no fuel elements, and no impact on the environment, since the slightly radioactive water was collected by the systems designed for this purpose. A second leak-tightness test was successfully carried out on Thursday, 17 November, in the presence of ASN inspectors.[11][12]

Reactors

Unit Type Net power Total power Construction start Construction finish Commercial operation Shut down
CIVAUX-1

[13][14]

PWR 1495 MW 1561 MW 1988/10/15 1997/12/24 2002/01/29
CIVAUX-2 PWR 1495 MW 1561 MW 1991/04/01 1999/12/24 2002/04/23
  • Civaux Nuclear Power Plant (2005)
    Civaux Nuclear Power Plant (2005)
  • Aerial view
    Aerial view
  • Turbine hall
    Turbine hall

See also

References

  1. ^ ASN. "La centrale de Civaux". Archived from the original on 30 December 2009. Retrieved 19 December 2009.
  2. ^ EDF. "La centrale nucléaire de Civaux". Archived from the original on 13 April 2022. Retrieved 3 August 2022.
  3. ^ Document Agence française de sécurité sanitaire de l'environnement et du travail[permanent dead link], 10 octobre 2007
  4. ^ "Réacteur 1 – Défaut d'étanchéité de l'enceinte" [Reactor 1 – Containment leak defect]. asn.fr (in French). Archived from the original on 2025-11-11. Retrieved 2025-11-11.
  5. ^ "Après l'acier, des doutes sur le béton d'un réacteur" [After the steel, doubts about the concrete of a reactor]. La Nouvelle République du Centre-Ouest (in French). Retrieved 2025-11-11.
  6. ^ Liffran, Hervé (2018-02-28). "Le gendarme de l'atome a perdu sa langue" [The nuclear watchdog has lost its voice]. Le Canard enchaîné (in French). p. 4.
  7. ^ "Résistance au séisme de tableaux d'alimentation électrique des centrales nucléaires" [Earthquake resistance of electrical supply panels in nuclear power plants]. ASN (in French). 2018-02-19. Retrieved 2025-11-11.
  8. ^ "Phénomène de corrosion sous contrainte détecté sur le circuit d'injection de sécurité du réacteur 1 de la centrale de Civaux - Arrêt des réacteurs de 1 450 MWe pour réalisation de contrôles" [Stress corrosion phenomenon detected on the safety injection circuit of Civaux reactor 1 – Shutdown of 1,450 MWe reactors for inspections]. Autorité de sûreté nucléaire. December 16, 2021. Retrieved November 10, 2025.
  9. ^ "Détection de fissures sur des tuyauteries du système d'injection de sécurité des réacteurs n°1 et n°2 de la centrale nucléaire de Civaux" [Detection of cracks in the safety injection system pipes of reactors no. 1 and no. 2 of the Civaux nuclear power plant] (PDF). Institut de radioprotection et de sûreté nucléaire. December 16, 2021. Retrieved November 10, 2025.
  10. ^ "Centrale nucléaire : Arrêté depuis août 2021, le réacteur n°1 de Civaux reconnecté au réseau" [Nuclear power plant: Shut down since August 2021, Civaux reactor no. 1 reconnected to the grid]. 20 Minutes. AFP. January 28, 2023. Retrieved November 10, 2025.
  11. ^ "Civaux nuclear power plant: the leak has been fixed" [Centrale nucléaire de Civaux : la fuite a été résorbée]. Le Point / AFP (in French). 2022-11-11. Retrieved 2025-11-11.
  12. ^ "Restart of a Civaux reactor threatened by a leak" [Le redémarrage d’un réacteur de Civaux menacé par une fuite]. Le Figaro (in French). 2022-11-07. Retrieved 2025-11-11.
  13. ^ "Power plant profile: Civaux 1, France". Power Technology. 2021-11-22. Archived from the original on 2024-08-12. Retrieved 2024-08-12.
  14. ^ "CIVAUX-1". World Nuclear Association. 1988-10-15. Archived from the original on 2024-08-12. Retrieved 2024-08-12.


allikas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civaux_Nuclear_Power_Plant