State in mid-December 2017 (source: TASR)
Drivers on the cross-country D1 highway passing the town of Hlohovec often see steam rising from the towers of the nuclear power plant in Jaslovské Bohunice. The sight will change soon, since the Nuclear and Decommissioning Company (JAVYS) started dismantling the cooling towers of the two closed units of the V1 nuclear power station in early October.
“The gradual removal of four cooling towers is an inseparable part of decommissioning the V1 nuclear power plant,” Miriam Žiaková, spokesperson for JAVYS, told The Slovak Spectator.
First of its kind
The history of the V1 nuclear power plant goes back to 1966 when the decision to construct a second power plant in Jaslovské Bohunice was adopted. Unlike the first power plant, this one would have pressurised-water reactors with an installed capacity of 440 MW. The construction of the two nuclear blocks of the V1 power plant started in April 1972, JAVYS wrote on its website.
“The preparation and implementation of the power plant’s construction, including the launching of its production, was carried out with the cooperation of specialists and organisations from Czechoslovakia and Russia,” JAVYS wrote on its website.
The nuclear blocks were connected to the power grid in 1978 and 1980.
“The V1 became the first Czechoslovak industrial nuclear power plant with fully-received and serially-produced equipment,” JAVYS wrote.
The V1’s twin, the V2 nuclear power station, was gradually connected to the grid in 1984 and 1985.
The V1 underwent minor reconstruction in the years 1991-1993, and 1996-2000 to improve the power plant’s safety, JAVYS wrote.
Despite extensive upgrades completed in 2000, Slovakia committed itself to closing and decommissioning the two V1 reactors in 1999, prior to its accession to the EU. It disconnected them from the grid in 2006 and 2008.
