Ascó nuclear power plant, in Tarragona, in a file image. Albert Garcia
The Ascó I nuclear power plant (Tarragona) has notified the Nuclear Safety Council (CSN) that it has stopped its activity in an unscheduled manner to carry out "a review of the associated instrumentation" after an incident in one of the reactor's coolant pumps. The plant was decoupled from the electricity grid at 21:30 p.m. on Friday "after having detected several episodes with high vibration signals from one of the sensors that take measurements on the axis of one of the pumps."
The information on the nuclear power plant ensures that the incident has not affected workers, the public or the environment and that when the relevant works and checks are completed the plant will be resynchronized with the electricity grid.
With the information available so far, the unscheduled stop is classified at level 0 (off the scale) on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES, which reaches number 7, serious accident), so it has no significance for safety, according to the CSN. Specifically, after detecting several episodes with high vibration signals in one of the sensors on the shaft of one of the reactor's coolant pumps, those responsible for Ascó I decided to reduce the load progressively until it was decoupled from the electricity grid and the turbine stopped in order to access the containment enclosure to carry out the necessary work to replace the pump sensors and solve the anomaly.
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