Unplanned outages at Hartlepool nuclear power plant's two 620-MW reactors are set to last until Feb. 4 and Feb. 6, UK operator EDF Energy said in transparency notes Jan. 8.
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RegistroProduction at the County Durham site in northeast England had ceased Jan. 6 "for maintenance activities", EDF Energy said. No further details were available.
The outage at Hartlepool compounds UK nuclear problems in the new year after an unplanned outage at Heysham nuclear plant Dec. 29 took another 585-MW reactor out of service.
Failure of a steam valve at reactor 1 at Heysham 1 saw reactor 2 taken offline for inspections. Reactor 1 is due back Jan. 24, EDF data showed. An inspection of similar valves at reactor 2 at Heysham 1, meanwhile, is expected to keep the unit offline until Jan. 16.
Meanwhile, reactor 7 at Heysham 2 has been offline since early December for planned refueling, due back Jan. 27, with only reactor 8 (624 MW) currently online at the Lancashire site on the northwest coast of England.
Nuclear generation midday Jan. 8 was seen at 3.45 GW, down from 4.66 GW at the start of the year, according to system data. The UK has total operable nuclear capacity of 5.88 GW.
"Gas output has risen from 2.5 GW during the holiday season to 22 GW in the last days," a UK power trader told S&P Global on Jan. 8.
"UK also still has decent wind in contrary to the continent," the trader said.
UK CCGT output of 22.94 GW midday Jan. 8 was meeting 50% of demand. Evening peak demand was seen rising to 45.62 GW. Wind production of 11 GW midday was meeting 25% of demand.
Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, assessed the UK evening peak (block 5) power price for delivery Jan. 9 at GBP115.50/MWh, up 29% week on week.