page_title: Mochovce Nuclear Power Plant
section_title: Units 1&2 operations
hierarchical_section_title: Mochovce Nuclear Power Plant / Units 1&2 operations
caption_attribution_description: English: Reactor Hall of Mochovce NPP unit 1 and 2
context_page_description: The Mochovce Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power plant located between the towns of Nitra and Levice, on the site of the former village of Mochovce, Slovakia. Two up-rated 470 MW reactors are presently in operation, with two further reactors of the same type under construction. Generating almost 7,000 GWh of electricity a year, the power plant currently serves approximately 20% of Slovakia's electricity needs.
context_section_description: Since late 2008 the two operating units at Mochovce NPP have uprated net electrical power output to 436 MW per turbogenerator, ergo the total installed capacity of units 1 and 2 in Mochovce NPP stands at 872 MW. In 2009, the plant managed to generate over 7 TWh of electricity during a one-year period for the first time in its history. This represents approximately one quarter of the overall annual electricity consumption in Slovakia.
  All units at Bohunice and Mochovce NPP feature evolutionary VVER pressurized water reactors, which are characteristic with:
  relatively low power and power density
  huge volume of water for cooling during normal operation as well as in emergency
  robust design with reinforced concrete containment with walls thick up to 1.5 m
  triple redundancy safety system (3 x 100%)
  high level of passive safety.
  The principle of electricity generation in nuclear power plants is similar to that of conventional thermal power plants. The only difference is the heat source. In thermal plants, heat is produced from fossil fuels (coal, gas), generating vast quantities of greenhouse gas, whereas in nuclear power plants, nuclear fuel is used (natural or enriched uranium).
  In the pressurized water reactors, fuel in the form of fuel assemblies is placed in reactor pressure vessel to which chemically treated water flows. The water flows through channels in the fuel assemblies and removes the heat that is produced during fission reaction. Water coming from the reactor has a temperature of about 297 °C (VVER reactor type); it is then led through the hot arm of the primary piping into heat exchanger - steam generator. In steam generator, water flows through a bunch of pipes and delivers the heat to water from secondary circuit and has a temperature of 222 °C. When cooled down, primary circuit water is led back to reactor core. Secondary circuit water is evaporated in steam generator and the steam is led via steam collector to the blades of a turbine. The turbine shaft turns a generator that generates electric energy.
  Having delivered its energy to the turbine, steam condensates in condenser, and getting back to water state, it flows back, via heaters, to steam generator. In condenser, the mixture is cooled by a third cooling circuit. In this latter circuit, water is cooled by air flowing from the bottom to the upper part of the cooling tower due to so-called chimney effect. The stream of air takes along water steam and small water droplets, and that is why clouds of steam form above the cooling towers.
caption: Reactor hall for units 1&2
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D100", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2005:01:24 11:48:04", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "276", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1038", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7853", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/60", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2005:01:19 10:36:34", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2005:01:19 10:36:34", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "4", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Tungsten (incandescent light)", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "12", "EXIF SubSecTime": "80", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "80", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "80", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3008", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2000", "EXIF RelatedSoundFile": "", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "912", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 1, 0, 2, 1]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "18", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}