Unit 6 of the Šoštanj thermal power plant was intentionally taken offline in mid-November to conduct post-overhaul testing on its gas turbine. During this planned shutdown, engineers performed an additional inspection and determined that one of the unit’s grates required preventive repair. Until the repair was completed, the plant met heat supply needs through its gas turbines and, in recent days, by bringing Unit 5 back into operation.
Unit 6 had been out of service during the summer due to low heat demand but was restarted at the beginning of the heating season. An overhaul of the plant’s first gas turbine began in late September and was finished in early November. As part of the turbine’s post-maintenance testing program, Unit 6 was taken offline on 15 November.
Inspections during the outage focused on unusually high slag deposits observed in the previous three weeks of operation. Engineers found mechanical damage to one of the grates, prompting a decision to perform preventive repairs and delay the unit’s restart until the work was completed.
The repair schedule coincided with the need to carry out a long-overdue test start of Unit 5, which had been idle for nearly eleven months. As a result, Unit 5 temporarily supplied the thermal energy needed for approximately 35,000 consumers in the Šaleška Valley.
