'Hanul Nuclear Power Plant Shutdown' Large Plankton Collection Reaches 400 Tons... Units 1 and 2 'Normalized' in 13 Days

On the 6th, the turbine generator was manually stopped... On the 22nd of last month, it also entered the intake, and was 'restarted' after 7 days

Marine organism 'Salpa' entering the intake channel of Hanul Nuclear Power Plant.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Choi Jae-ho] On the 15th at 11:20 a.m., Hanul Nuclear Power Plant Units 1 and 2 (pressurized water reactors, 950,000 kW), which had been shut down due to the inflow of marine organisms on the 6th, sequentially resumed power generation starting with Unit 1 after 9 days. Both Units 1 and 2 reached 100% output at around 1:20 p.m. on the 19th, 13 days after the incident occurred.

According to Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Hanul Nuclear Power Headquarters, on the afternoon of the 6th, a large amount of salpa, a type of large plankton, was confirmed to have entered the intake channels of Hanul Units 1 and 2, leading to a manual shutdown of the turbine generators. Subsequently, all available personnel and equipment were mobilized to remove over 400 tons of salpa and replace all damaged nets.

Additionally, to improve the prevention and removal efficiency of marine organism inflow, high-pressure water spray equipment for drum screens and wet vacuum suction devices were newly installed. Along with this, the criteria for stopping circulation pumps were reestablished to control seawater inflow at the intake, and measures such as introducing trawlers to capture marine organisms and release them into the open sea were implemented, preparing multifaceted countermeasures against marine organism inflow, according to Hanul Nuclear Power Plant.

Park Beom-su, the head of the headquarters, emphasized, "The power plant is currently in a stable state," and added, "We will thoroughly establish and implement fundamental measures to minimize the impact on power generation facilities caused by marine organism inflow like this incident."

Meanwhile, Hanul Nuclear Power Plant also experienced a large inflow of marine organism salpa into the intake channels of Units 1 and 2 on the 22nd of last month, similar to this incident, and it took a week to resume operation of the nuclear power plant.

The scene of collecting approximately 400 tons of sludge gathered from the intake channel of Hanul Nuclear Power Plant.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.