Großwelzheim Nuclear Power Plant, (), was an experimental nuclear power plant consisting of one 25 MW reactor in Großwelzheim, a district of Karlstein am Main.
History The prototype boiling water reactor, designed to produce superheated steam, was under construction from 1965 to 1969. It was first connected to the power grid on 14 October 1969. The reactor could not be run at full capacity due to structural defects in the fuel elements.Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe: Der Rückbau des Heißdampfreaktors (HDR) in Karlstein am Main (PDF; 323 kB), accessed April 23, 2013 Because of this, the reactor was switched off about a year and a half later, on 20 April 1971.
After the decommissioning in 1983, the plant was used for reactor safety tests until dismantling was completed in 1998.Karlsruhe Institute of Technology: Lexikon zur Kernenergie, Stichwort "HDR" (PDF; 7,6 MB), Accessed January 1, 2018
The site also included the Kahl Nuclear Power Plant, the first nuclear reactor to be built in Germany, as well as the first to be shut down. This makes the site the first in Germany where two reactors have been dismantled.
When the community of Karlstein am Main was created in 1975, an atomic symbol was included in the municipal coat of arms, due to the two reactors present in the newly formed town.
Reactors Großwelzheim Nuclear Power Plant had one Reactor:
Reactor Reactor Type Net Capacity Gross Capacity Construction Start First Grid Connection Commercial Operation Start Permanent Shutdown Date HDR Großwelzheim Prototype Boiling Water Reactor 23 MW 25 MW 1 January 1965 14 October 1969 2 August 1970 20 April 1971
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