A fire took place during the night from Friday to Saturday at the Chinon nuclear power plant (Indre-et-Loire) at a transformer located outside the nuclear zone, and which did not cause any injuries and which did not had no “impact on the environment”, announced EDF, Paudal reports.
Around 2:40 a.m., “a fire broke out at the Chinon nuclear power plant, at the main transformer of production unit number 3, located outside the nuclear zone. Production unit number 3 of the Chinon nuclear power plant s “is stopped automatically, in accordance with the reactor's safety and protection systems,” EDF said in a press release.
The power station's intervention teams “immediately went to the site, and in accordance with procedures, external emergency services were called. The fire is extinguished,” added the press release.
“Production units No. 3 and No. 4 are safely shut down,” according to the same source.
The Nuclear Safety Agency indicated on its website that an internal emergency plan had been triggered.
“The loss of the main external electrical power supply to reactor 3, following this fire, led to the automatic shutdown of the reactor. The fire equipment necessary to extinguish the fire came into service,” indicates the ASN on its website.
“ASN will be attentive to monitoring the rainwater network on reactors 3 and 4 and will examine, in conjunction with EDF and IRSN (Institute for Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety, editor's note), the conditions for lifting the emergency plan. internal emergency, in order to authorize its lifting,” the press release continued.
The Chinon nuclear power plant has four 900 MWe pressurized water reactors. “In 2023, it produced 17.24 TWh of low-CO2 electricity, which represents approximately 5.4% of French nuclear electricity production,” indicates EDF on its site.
