Romanian state-owned nuclear power producer Nuclearelectrica could shut down its last working reactor on August 13 as levels on the Danube River continue to fall, it said on Tuesday, despite efforts to divert cooling water to the plant.

Record-low river levels forced Nuclearelectrica to shut down one reactor in late July. The company has two reactors in Cernavoda on the Danube accounting for a fifth of the country's power output.

Romania has taken unprecedented measures to keep the country's sole working reactor running, including detonating a rock obstruction out of the water, dredging the riverbed and sinking rock-filled barges in the Danube to redirect flows around the power plant.

"The possibility of a controlled shutdown (of the second reactor) is based on monitoring weather forecasts for the following period, the fall in Danube levels and operating parameters," Nuclearelectrica said.

Flows on the Danube, Europe's second-longest river, had fallen to a new all-time low of 1,370 cubic metres of water per second at its Romanian entry point on Tuesday, a director at the state water management agency said, adding the shutdown was "unavoidable".

Romania has already declared a state of energy emergency throughout August and asked companies and households to voluntarily reduce consumption during peak evening hours.

The government has prepared a system to cut power for industrial consumers in stages and with prior notice if needed.

Further upstream, neighbouring Hungary started to switch back on a turbine at the Paks nuclear plant on Monday after a rise in Danube water levels. However, rain upstream would not make a difference for Romania, the last country through which the Danube flows before it enters the Black Sea, the water management agency said.

Europe has been ravaged by record-breaking heat and destructive wildfires this summer, wreaking havoc on power production, shipping and public health systems.

In Moldova, Romania's eastern neighbour, officials tackling low water levels on the Dniester River and possible water shortages in Chisinau and other cities said Ukraine would reduce the flow of water through the Dniester hydropower station.

A meeting of a joint commission agreed to lower the flow to 75 cubic metres per second, a decline of 10 cubic metres. Only one of four power units at the station was operating.

"The decision was a difficult one," Moldovan ecologist Ilia Trombitchi, a participant in the meeting, wrote on social media. "It will remain in effect until the end of August and we will have another ⁠meeting."

Officials said the decision would allow for the critical irrigation of crops in certain Moldovan regions. (Reuters)



Edited by Cecil Wong