PreussenElektra has completed the removal of all four steam generators from the reactor building at the shut down Unterweser nuclear power plant in Germany. The operation, which started in mid-May, was finished within four weeks, on schedule.
Each steam generator stands about 20 meters tall and weighs approximately 300 tonnes. Removing them required nearly two years of careful planning, testing, and modifications both inside and outside the reactor building. The process also involved detailed dismantling steps for these large heat exchangers.
According to PreussenElektra, the work inside the reactor building was especially difficult. Each steam generator had to be carefully rotated, tilted, and lifted multiple times before it could be safely lowered into a storage area on site. The first generator took around 18 hours to remove, but the team improved their efficiency with each lift. By the final steam generator, the removal time had decreased to about 11 hours.
Project Manager Attila Damon praised the effort, calling it “absolute precision work and a masterpiece of engineering.” He also highlighted the skill of their partners, Framatome and Mammoet, in successfully carrying out the complex task.
The steam generators will be shipped in July to Cyclife in Sweden. There, they will be dismantled and then melted down in a smelter.
Unterweser is a pressurized water reactor with a gross capacity of 1410 MWe. It operated from 1978 until 2011. The plant was shut down in March 2011, along with six other nuclear power plants in Germany, after losing its commercial license under changes to the Atomic Energy Act.
PreussenElektra is also responsible for decommissioning other German nuclear plants, including Brokdorf, Grafenrheinfeld, Grohnde, Isar 2, and Stade.
In 2021, PreussenElektra awarded a contract to Cyclife, a subsidiary of EDF specializing in nuclear decommissioning and waste management, to dismantle and dispose of 16 steam generators from the Unterweser, Grafenrheinfeld, Grohnde, and Brokdorf plants.
Preparations have already begun to remove steam generators at the next plant, Grafenrheinfeld, PreussenElektra confirmed.
