The only reactor in Oskarshamn will soon have been standing still for half a year. Preliminarily, the reactor would have been restarted on 17 September, a restart that has been postponed several times.
Now it is 17 October that applies after tests with robots that are supposed to fix the leak have not turned out entirely well, according to production manager Andreas Roos.
It's about us having to rectify a defect in the facility in a hard-to-reach place. So we have been forced to develop robots to do the actual repair. And some of the tests have not gone as planned and therefore we now have to improve these robots, he says.
Uncertain
Historically, more difficult repairs of reactors usually take longer than planned.
There are still some uncertainties, but the specified start time is still our absolute best assessment at present, says Andreas Roos.
The extended stop of Sweden's largest reactor in terms of effect will have price consequences, Christian Holtz believes.
It primarily affects southern Sweden (electricity area 3 and 4, i.e. Svealand and Götaland), he says.
Importing higher prices
The reason is that Sweden already has a divided price picture with high prices in southern Sweden, especially in the far south. The low water levels in southern Norway, in parallel with shut-down nuclear power and increased consumption when it gets colder, drive up the price, according to Holtz.
Southern Sweden becomes more dependent on imports from the continent and thus the higher prices there, he says.
At present, three out of six Swedish reactors are shut down, where Forsmark 1 has been forced to postpone the restart of a reactor that has had problems. One of the reactors in Ringhals is standing still due to annual planned review. This, combined with very little wind production, has raised electricity prices significantly in recent days.
