The Leibstadt Nuclear Power Plant (, KKL) is located near Leibstadt, canton of

Aargau Aargau ( ; ), more formally the Canton of Aargau (; ; ; ), is one of the Canton of Switzerland, 26 cantons forming the Switzerland, Swiss Confederation. It is composed of eleven districts and its capital is Aarau. Aargau is one of the most nort ...

, Switzerland, on the

Rhine The Rhine ( ) is one of the List of rivers of Europe, major rivers in Europe. The river begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps. It forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein border, then part of the Austria–Swit ...

and close to the border with Germany. Commissioned in 1984, it is the youngest and most powerful of the country's four operating reactors. Its

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) was an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1892, incorporated in the New York (state), state of New York and headquartered in Boston. Over the year ...

-built

boiling water reactor A boiling water reactor (BWR) is a type of nuclear reactor used for the generation of electrical power. It is the second most common type of electricity-generating nuclear reactor after the pressurized water reactor (PWR). BWR are thermal neutro ...

produces 1,220 MW of electrical power. The nuclear power station has produced approximately 8.5 TWh per year, slightly less than the Goesgen Nuclear Power Plant. It is owned by Leibstadt AG (KKL), a consortium of six Swiss energy companies: Axpo Holding AG (split between CKW AG with 13.6%, Axpo Power AG with 22.8% and Axpo Solutions AG with 16.3%), Alpiq AG with 27.4%, BKW Energie AG with 14.5% and AEW energy AG with 5.4%. Management of the power plant was originally the responsibility of EGL AG before being transferred to Axpo.

History

Planning for the KKL began in 1964 for a 600 MW reactor. The

Swiss Federal Council The Federal Council is the federal cabinet of the Swiss Confederation. Its seven members also serve as the collective head of state and government of Switzerland. Since World War II, the Federal Council is by convention a permanent grand co ...

opposed direct cooling by river water, replaced in the design in 1971 with a

cooling tower A cooling tower is a device that rejects waste heat to the atmosphere through the cooling of a coolant stream, usually a water stream, to a lower temperature. Cooling towers may either use the evaporation of water to remove heat and cool the ...

. During further planning the output was increased to 900 and then 1200 MW. In the wake of the 1979

Three Mile Island accident The Three Mile Island accident was a partial nuclear meltdown of the Unit 2 reactor (TMI-2) of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station, located on the Susquehanna River in Londonderry Township, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, Londonderry T ...

new safety regulations were implemented, delaying completion for several years. The 2 billion

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construction budget spiraled to over 5 billion before the plant opened in 1984 after eleven years of construction. The history of the completion of the KKL reflected increasingly critical attitudes toward nuclear power in Switzerland during the 1970s and 1980s, which culminated in the resistance against the Kaiseraugst Nuclear Power Plant. With the installation of a new low-pressure turbine in 2010 Leibstadt, achieved an increase of 40 megawatts. A new 420 tonne generator, the heaviest AIL to be carried on Switzerland's roads, significantly improved the power plants performance.

Grid connection

Leibstadt Nuclear Power Plant feeds its generated electrical energy via a double-circuit 380 kV line, which is a loop-over of the 380 kV Beznau-Leibstadt line. This line, which starts north of Hottweil, has a special feature: a ground wire consisting of a bundle of two wires each equipped with an integrated communication cable, which are separeted by space

Nuclear events

Gallery

File:Leibstadt Kernkraftwerk im Bau ETH-Bibliothek Com LC1237-001-003.tif, In construction File:Leibstadt Nuclear Power Plant.jpg, Aerial view File:2011-05-10 18-57-46 Switzerland - Wil.jpg File:Klingnauer Stausee 2003 04 05.jpg File:P1100097-a-redu.jpg

References

External links