Estonia's Auvere Power Plant Out of Action Again, Repairs to Take About Two Weeks

The Auvere power plant, run by the Estonian energy company Eesti Energia, stopped operating on Thursday evening because of a technical fault. According to the company's forecast, fixing the problem will take about two weeks. The plant, which burns oil shale, had already undergone unplanned repairs earlier this year.

What failed

Lennart Komp, head of communications at Eesti Energia, told the news portal ERR on Friday that the fault occurred in the ash removal pipe. Hot ash produced when oil shale is burned in the boiler travels through this pipe to a heat exchanger.

He stressed that the breakdown is unrelated to earlier faults. A defect of this kind has not occurred before, he said, and it did not show up during the summer maintenance work.

Why the repair takes so long

According to Komp, the timeline is determined mainly by the need to cool the plant first. That will take about three days, because the ash moving through the pipe is hotter than 500 degrees.

Once it has cooled, work to clean the pipe must be prepared and then carried out, followed by installation, drying and other related tasks. The company spokesman said these stages together make up the two-week estimate.

Previous outage

The last time the Auvere plant was out for unplanned repairs was in January and February of this year.