Atucha 1 prepares for life extension shutdown
Nucleoeléctrica Argentina says it has secured the necessary funds to carry out the Atucha 1 life extension project.
The President of the company, Alberto Lamagna, made the announcement ahead of its planned shutdown on 29 September, after 50 years of operation.
Atucha I, a 362 MWe pressurised heavy water reactor, entered commercial operation in 1974 and had a design life in its operating licence of 32 equivalent years of full power. The first extension, with an amendment to the operating licence, began in 2018 when that 32-year mark was reached.
Argentina's Nuclear Regulatory Authority (ARN) said during this first extension phase that Nucleoelectrica "had to carry out studies and establish programmes that would ensure ... that the systems and components adequately preserve the functionalities for which they were designed, thus guaranteeing operation under the safety conditions with which the plant was licensed. The studies and maintenance tasks necessary to meet this requirement had to obtain approval from the ARN".
The duration of the amended operating licence was for the equivalent of 5 years operation at full power, or 10 years from 2014, which ends on 29 September. Following the shutdown, ARN said, the next stage of the Long Term Operation (LTO) project will see it "verify in detail the implementation of the updates and improvements required ... to raise the design bases of the facility to a higher level of security than that with which it was originally licensed".
Nucleoeléctrica Argentina put the refurbishment programme's cost at USD463 million in 2023 when it launched a fundraising round of bond sales to cover the LTO cost and construction of a dry storage facility for used fuel.
Lamagna said: "The project will allow Atucha I to operate for 20 more years, ensuring its contribution to the national energy matrix and promoting the development of technical capabilities that will position Argentina in the global nuclear services market."
Background
Atucha 1 was designed and built by KWU, which was a joint venture of Germany's Siemens and AEG. Over time, KWU was fully owned by Siemens, before being sold to the reactor business of France's Areva which is now owned by EDF and trading as Framatome. However, Argentina now has an experienced supply chain of its own for pressurised heavy water reactors, having completed and brought into operation the similar Atucha 2 reactor in 2016.
It has become common for pressurised heavy water reactors like Atucha 1 to undergo refurbishment, which typically involves replacing pressure tubes and fuel channels, to enable another two decades of operation. Nucleoeléctrica Argentina said 2000 jobs would be created as it modernised "all the processes and systems of the plant."
