Slovenia shut down Wednesday its sole nuclear power plant for 30 days of regular maintenance work, nearly a year after an incident there triggered a Europe-wide alert, authorities said.
The Krsko plant was shut down for five days last June when a loss was detected in the reactor's cooling system, which led to the first Europe-wide radiation alert since the system was put in place in the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
Slovenia came under fire for wrongly telling other countries that the whole episode was only an exercise.
Krsko works on an 18-month cycle, after which it is regularly closed for a month of maintenance.
During the past 18 months, it generated 8.36 terawatt hours of electricity, 1.7% more than initially planned, the plant authorities said.
The Krsko nuclear power plant, which is jointly owned by Slovenia and neighboring Croatia, was built by American-Japanese company Westinghouse and became operational in 1983. Situated 120 kilometers east of Ljubljana, it produces 20% of all electricity used in Slovenia and covers 15% of Croatia's power needs.