Chinon Nuclear Power Plant

Chinon Nuclear Power Plant
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Official name	Centrale Nucléaire de Chinon
Country	France
Location	Avoine, Indre-et-Loire
Coordinates	47°13′57″N 0°10′13″E / 47.2325°N 0.1703°E / 47.2325; 0.1703Coordinates: 47°13′57″N 0°10′13″E / 47.2325°N 0.1703°E / 47.2325; 0.1703
Status	Operational
Construction began	1957
Commission date	February 1, 1964 (February 1, 1964)
Operator(s)	EDF
Nuclear power station
Reactor type	PWR
Reactor supplier	Framatome
Cooling towers	4 × Mechanical Draft
Power generation
Units operational	4 × 954 MW
Make and model	Alstom
Units decommissioned	1 × 80 MW 1 × 230 MW 1 × 480 MW
Nameplate capacity	3,816 MW
Capacity factor	71.6%
Annual net output	23,925 GW·h
External links
Website	Centrale nucléaire de Chinon
Commons	Related media on Commons
[edit on Wikidata]

The Chinon Nuclear Power Plant (French: Centrale nucléaire de Chinon) is near the town of Avoine in the Indre et Loire département, on the Loire river (approximately 10 km from the town of Chinon) in central France. The power station has seven reactors, of which three have been closed.

Operation[]

It employs approximately 1,350 full-time workers. The operator is Électricité de France (EDF).

Performance[]

The site houses three of the first generation of French plants, of UNGG-type (similar to the Magnox design), which have now closed. Four of the first French PWR series were later built on the site. The site has four cooling towers, designed to be low-profile in order to minimise the visual impact on the Loire.

It is larger than most French plants and feeds approximately 6% of French electricity demand.

Events[]

• During the unusually cold 1986-87 winter, the water intake from the river, as well as several other important pieces of equipment and machinery, froze.
• On December 21, 2005, sand accumulated inside the tertiary cooling circuit, threatening to block it. This could have stopped cooling of all the reactors.
• On September 4, 2008, some industrial oil was accidentally discharged to the river in a maintenance operation. It was not radioactively contaminated.
• On April 30, 2009, a bomb alert caused an evacuation of the plant and an intervention by several units of army security forces.

Other info[]

• Since 1986, the closed Chinon A1 reactor has been redeveloped to hold the French Atom Museum.
• The INTRA (INTervention Robotic on Accidents) group, a national nuclear event emergency intervention group equipped with remotely guided, radiation hardened machinery, has its headquarters at the plant.

Reactors[]

See also[]

• Nuclear decommissioning

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Chinon nuclear power plant.

• http://www.geniustour.com/en/pages/detail.php?j=Nuclear-Museum-of-Chinon