Power plant problems

The Swedish-owned electric utility, Vattenfall, which operates the Kruemmel nuclear power station in northern Germany, said it turned off the reactor on Saturday after a problem with one of the power plant's two machinery transformers.

The defect caused a sudden drop in voltage which, in turn, blacked out between 1,500 and 1,800 traffic lights in Germany's second-largest city of Hamburg and darkened a number of shopping malls.

There were also power cuts last Wednesday thought to have been caused by a transformer problem at the plant.

Safety versus energy security

Kruemmel only re-opened less than two weeks ago after a two-year shutdown triggered by a fire. The 2007 fire which was caused by a short circuit, and other incidents at Vattenfall's Brunsbuettel power plant in the same year, fueled a fierce debate in Germany about the safety of the country's nuclear power stations.

The German government and four companies operating nuclear power plants in the country subsequently agreed to tighter safety standards.

When Kruemmel re-opened in June, Vattenfall said the plant, which generates about 10 billion kilowatt hours of electricity per year, had been thoroughly modernized and that this would reduce the likelihood of a future incident.

In 2000, Germany decided to mothball its 17 reactors by the year 2020.

However, Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU/CSU conservative bloc has for some time been calling for a re-assessment of that policy decision, arguing that Germany's dependence on foreign energy made nuclear power indispensable.

gb/AP/dpa/AFP/Reuters
Editor: Andreas Illmer