Taipower officials say that there was no security risk at the nation’s Third Nuclear Power Plant after an air conditioner caught fire early Sunday morning.
Officials say that the external unit was located on the second floor of a building that houses a simulation center at the plant in southern Taiwan. On-site firefighters cut electricity to the unit and quickly put out the fire.
Plant officials say that the air conditioning unit was destroyed in the blaze, and that another external unit on the first floor sustained damage. However, they said that there was no damage inside the building, and that the incident did not pose a threat to nuclear safety.
Taipower spokesman Lin Te-fu said Sunday that the fire may have started because the air conditioning unit was old. He said that Taipower has already instructed plant officials to inspect all of the on-site air conditioning units.
This was not the first fire at the plant this year. In late April, the plant shut down one of its reactors after an auxiliary step-down transformer caught on fire.
When asked whether the recent incidents were a sign of mismanagement, Lin said that it was a problem with equipment located outside of the power plant itself. He said that there was no connection to how the plant is managed, but that the management would nevertheless conduct a thorough review.