Wednesday July 8, 04:11 PM
UPDATE 1-Sweden presses Vattenfall on nuclear safety
By Niklas Pollard
STOCKHOLM, July 8 (Reuters) - Sweden demanded on Wednesday that state-owned power utility Vattenfall provide an account of its work on nuclear safety after problems at one of its plants in Germany and security concerns at another in Sweden.
The government's request was made after Swedish authorities earlier on Wednesday ordered the utility's majority-owned Ringhals nuclear plant, located south of the city of Gothenburg in south-west Sweden, to take steps to improve safety.
The decision by the Nordic country's nuclear watchdog came in the wake of a failed restart of Vattenfall's nuclear plant at Kruemmel, northern Germany, which caused power outages across the city of Hamburg on Saturday.
'This is certainly not good and not what the owner is expecting of the company,' said Ola Altera, a senior official at Sweden's Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communications.
'We want the company to provide their account of this.'
The ministry said on Wednesday in a statement that the events concerning Vattenfall's nuclear plants had 'unfortunately damaged trust in the company both in Sweden and in Germany.'
The Swedish Radiation Safety Authority said in a statement it was requiring the Ringhals nuclear plant to rectify deficiencies related to the 'safety culture' at the facility.
'The authority has on several occasions pointed out shortcomings...,' said Leif Karlsson, acting head of the radiation safety unit at the authority.
'Still, they have not come to grips with their problems.'
However, the authority said the failings at the plant, which has an annual production capacity of 28 terawatts, were not great enough to prevent continued operation of the reactors.
BOTCHED RESTART
Ringhals said in a separate statement that it would make every effort to meet the demands set out by the authority.
'The issue now is to ensure -- in close cooperation with the authority -- that our measures are yielding results,' Ringhals Chief Executive Bertil Dihne said.
The nuclear plant, in which Vattenfall owns a 70.4 percent stake, is the Nordic region's biggest power plant and has four reactors. E.ON owns the remaining 29.6 percent.
In neighbouring Germany, Vattenfall's botched restart of its ageing Kruemmel plant has led to heated political debate over nuclear energy, sharpening the battlelines within the coalition government ahead of the elections in September.
Sweden's radiation authority said the failings at the Ringhals plant related to 'weaknesses' in terms of management and governance, adherence to routines and instructions.
The authority, which is responsible for radiation protection and nuclear safety in Sweden, said it was ordering Ringhals to investigate and explain why routines at the facility were not being adhered to and why the shortcomings had not been solved.
'Ringhals is also to prepare a new action programme to rectify the identified repeated shortcomings,' it said.
(Reporting by Niklas Pollard; Editing by Peter Blackburn) Keywords: VATTENFALL/
|
|
|
Send Article by Email
Send Article by IM
Blog This with Y! 360
Printable View
