One of the reactors at the Czech nuclear power station at Temelin, closed for maintenance since the end of July, is to remain shut for several more weeks so a turbine blade can be repaired, the plant operator said Tuesday.
The unit at the plant, situated 60 kilometres (35 miles) from the Austrian border, was shut down for 75 days at the end of July for routine maintenance, extended for two weeks for work on the cooling system.
"Unit 1 is in an outage," a statement from the operating CEZ group said.
"At the final tests prior to the synchronisation of Temelin NPP Unit 1 to the national power grid (on October 19, 2008), damage to a blade and adjacent parts of the impeller occurred at the third low pressure turbine (NT3)."
"The NT3 repair will be completed by the first half of December."
Planned in the communist era, Temelin was originally due to have four reactors but after the collapse of communism the number was cut to two.
The Czech Republic, which owns a two-thirds share of CEZ, is Europe's biggest electricity exporter after France and plans to expand production.
