Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar officially warned on the social network X that the power of the Paks NPP could suffer a new serious reduction at the beginning of this week.
The reason is the continuing and dangerous drop in the water level of the Danube River, whose waters are used to cool the reactors. According to the Hungarian head of government, Tuesday and Wednesday will be critical for the country's energy system.
Critical nine centimeters to new closure
In his statement, Magyar indicated that within a few hours the level of the Danube is expected to drop by another 14-15 centimeters. The situation is extremely tense, as the river is currently only 9 centimeters above the critical point at which the penultimate operating turbine of the Paks NPP will have to be automatically shut down. To date, only the second turbine out of a total of eight is actually operating at the plant. The plant produces only 480 MWh of electricity, which is a drastic drop compared to the planned capacity of 2,000 MWh.
The energy crisis in Central Europe is rapidly deepening. We recall that earlier this month the Hungarian plant already suffered a historic reduction in capacity, and neighboring Romania was forced to completely shut down the first reactor of its Cernavoda NPP. due to the same problem with the drying up of the Danube.
Extraordinary engineering measures to save the plant
The Hungarian authorities are racing against time and taking unconventional tactical steps on the ground. In order to artificially raise the water level to the pumps of the Paks NPP, the government has begun the controlled sinking of two 80-meter cargo barges into the riverbed. In parallel, the army is building a bottom retaining wall (threshold) at an accelerated pace. As an additional measure, a floodgate was opened upstream, which helped save a valuable two centimeters of water.
According to weather forecasters, the peak of the crisis should pass by Thursday, when heavy rainfall is expected in the Austrian part of the Danube basin, which will stabilize the river flow.