Landshut (dpa/lby) – After Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) decided to continue operating three nuclear power plants, the Isar 2 reactor in Bavaria was taken off the grid on Friday for maintenance work. The work started at 5 a.m. in the morning and should last about a week, operator PreussenElektra announced on Friday. As a result, the kiln in Niederviehbach in Lower Bavaria (Landshut district) should be able to continue running into the coming year.
The operator had already decided when to carry out the repairs at the end of September, when the Federal Cabinet was still discussing whether the remaining three German nuclear power plants could continue to operate into the coming year. Actually, all three should have been switched off at the end of the year. At the beginning of the week, however, Chancellor Scholz approved operations until mid-April 2023 in order to cushion bottlenecks in the energy crisis. According to PreussenElektra, however, Isar 2 can only be operated until March with the fuel elements currently in use. The neighboring Isar 1 nuclear reactor has been in the process of being dismantled since 2017.
During the work, so-called pressurizer pilot valves, which are responsible for releasing gases and steam, will be renewed. This maintenance was last done in October last year. PreussenElektra boss Guido Knott said on Thursday that with the work “we are complying with the federal government’s request to make preparations for continued operation”.