Centrica profits hit by outage at EDF Energy power stations

11th Aug 2014 08:52

Centrica has said that earnings this year will be affected by a reduction in output from EDF Energy's nuclear power stations.Inspections of so-called 'boiler spines' at EDF Energy's Heysham power plants on the north-west coast of England near Lancaster found an unexpected "defect" in one of the eight boiler spines in Heysham 1 Reactor 1. Boiler spines support the weight of the boiler tubes in each reactor.While Heysham 1 Reactor 1 returned to service on a reduced load after the inspection earlier this year, it was shut down after an outage in June. Even though previous inspections of other reactors had found no anomalies, EDF said it took the "conservative decision" to shut down the neighbouring Heysham 1 Reactor 2 and Hartlepool Reactors 1 and 2 to carry out further inspections."Until the results of the further inspections are known it is not possible to advise exact return to service dates for these four reactors, however, an initial estimate is that these investigations will take around eight weeks," EDF said.Centrica, which has a 20% interest in EDF Energy's nuclear operations, said: "The resulting reduction in output from the affected nuclear power stations is currently estimated to reduce Centrica's earnings per share in 2014 by around 0.3 pence per share".Current consensus forecasts for Centrica point to earnings per share of 21.71p in 2014, down from 26.60p in 2013.The stock was down 0.6% at 306.2p by 08:16.BC