Country France Status Operational Operator(s) EDF Make and model Alstom | Location Belleville-sur-Loire Commission date October 14, 1987 Phone +33 2 48 54 50 50 Construction began 1980 | |
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Official name Centrale Nucléaire de Belleville Address 18240 Belleville-sur-Loire, France Similar Camping les Germains, Maison de Loire, Hexagone Immobilier, Bonny‑su, Site Île de Cosne | ||
The Belleville Nuclear Power Plant is located in Belleville-sur-Loire (Cher) near Léré, Cher, along the Loire River between Nevers (75 kilometres (47 mi) upstream) and Orléans (100 kilometres (62 mi) downstream). It employs approximately 620 people and consists of two large 1,300 MW P4 nuclear reactors. Its cooling water comes from the Loire River.
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On March 27, 2007 twelve Greenpeace activists climbed the cooling tower and held up a sign in opposition to the construction of new units at the Flamanville Nuclear Power Plant.
Key informationEdit
The site spans 170 hectares and is located on a flood-safe, 4.6-meter-high platform. Each year it produces an average of 19 billion kilowatt hours fed to the electricity grid, and thus covers about four percent of French electricity production.
With the construction of the first reactor was started on May 1, 1980, and it began operation October 14, 1987. The second unit started construction August 1, 1980 and began operation July 6, 1988. The shutdown of the reactors is planned for the years 2028 and 2029 for unit 1 and 2.
SafetyEdit
In May 2001 construction-related defects were observed in this plant, along with four other sites.
The emergency cooling system of the two-phase nuclear power plant has a reserve water tank at the bottom of the reactor building. In the event of a defect in the primary cooling circuit that causes it to no longer contribute to cooling, the water from the reserve tank is automatically fed into the cooling system. Inspections in May 2001 showed, however, that this automatic feeding of the water was unreliable, because under some circumstances the pressure of the heated water may block the water slide.
The French nuclear regulatory authority ASN initially classified this disruption of the emergency cooling systems as stage 1 on the international scale of nuclear events (INES), but later assigned it the stage 2 classification. The operating company EDF then built the slider so that excess pressure can no longer lead to a blockage.