ENGIE's Belgian subsidiary Electrabel has restarted the second unit of its Tihange nuclear power plant (Belgium) that had stopped generating power since 2012 and had been taken offline in March 2014.
The 1,008 MW reactor, along with 1,006 MW Doel-3, had first been taken offline in 2012 for investigations into manufacturing flaws in their reactor pressure vessels ("hydrogen flakes"); the units were allowed to restart operation in May 2013 but further tests had to be conducted to evaluate the effect of these flakes over time. In March 2014, Electrabel brought forward planned outage for the two units, which were expected to last 6 weeks but took several months. In November 2015, the Federal Agency for Nuclear Control (FANC) approved the restart of the units, considering that the flakes "have no negative impact on the reactor vessel's structural integrity". Doel-3 is expected to be restarted by the end of December 2015.
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