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Unplanned Shutdown of Doel NPP's Reactor Takes Place in Belgium

BRUSSELS (Sputnik) - The ENGIE Electrabel company operating the Doel nuclear power plant (NPP) in northern Belgium said on Monday that it had decided to halt the activities of a reactor at the NPP ahead of the schedule.
Sputnik

According to ENGIE Electrabel, the company stopped the reactor's activities due to the necessity to hold maintenance work in the cooling system.

The reactor will be restarted on Tuesday.

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Belgium has a total number of seven reactors. In 2012, inspections showed the existence of tiny flaws in the steel rings used in the construction of the Tihange 2 and Doel 3 reactors. The reactors were temporarily shut down for safety inspections but Belgium restarted them after the Federal Agency for Nuclear Control (FANC) declared them "safe for operation."

READ MORE: Brussels Confirms Plan to Close All Nuclear Power Plants by 2025

In March, the Belgian cabinet endorsed an energy strategy, in which it had reaffirmed the plan to shut down all NPPs by 2025 against the backdrop of the Fukushima accident in Japan in March 2011.

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