Scheduled outages at Belgium's Tihange 2 and 3 have been further extended while concrete degradation issues in adjacent non-nuclear buildings are addressed, operator Electrabel has announced.

Unit 1 of the Sanmen nuclear power plant in China's Zhejiang province has completed 168 hours of full-power continuous operation. The AP1000 reactor is now deemed to be in commercial operation.

Two emergency response centres that store and maintain mobile operational equipment for deployment to US nuclear facilities in times of need were put on standby in preparation for Hurricane Florence, which made landfall in South Carolina earlier this week.

The Finnish government has approved a 20-year extension to the operating licences of units 1 and 2 at Finnish utility Teollisuuden Voima Oyj's Olkiluoto nuclear power plant.

Exelon Generation's Oyster Creek nuclear power plant retired from service yesterday after 49 years of electricity generation. The single-unit boiling water reactor was the oldest operating nuclear power plant in the USA.

Financial challenges facing nuclear energy need to be tackled by disrupting the status quo to help drive down costs, delegates heard at the recent World Nuclear Association 2018 Symposium in London.

UPDATED: Duke Energy has shut down both units at the Brunswick nuclear power plant as the North Carolina site faces hurricane-force winds, major storm surges and heavy rain. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission is staffing its incident response centre in Atlanta around the clock to monitor Hurricane Florence, which has now made landfall.

India's Atomic Energy Regulatory Board has concluded that corrosion spots caused by impurities in carbon dioxide gas at the Kakrapar plant led to coolant channel leaks in 2015 and 2016. Work has now been completed at unit 2.
 

NB Power and the New Brunswick Emergency Measures Organisation are to carry out Synergy Challenge 2018, a full-scale exercise to test the province's readiness to respond to a simulated nuclear emergency at the Point Lepreau nuclear power plant.
 

Unit 2 of the Sanmen nuclear power plant in China's Zhejiang province has been connected to the electricity grid and has begun supplying power. In late-June, Sanmen 1 became the world's first AP1000 to achieve grid connection and power generation.

Unit 1 of the Leningrad Phase II nuclear power plant in northwest Russia is now ready for commercial operation, Rosenergoatom announced today following the completion of the final commissioning test.

Milestones in the start-up of two AP1000s under construction in China were met on 17 August, with Sanmen unit 2 achieving first criticality and Haiyang unit 1 being grid connected.