July 9 (Bloomberg) -- Vattenfall AB, the fourth-largest power supplier in Germany, will start a full inspection of its Kruemmel nuclear reactor in the country after the facility shut down due to the absence of a monitoring system.

The Swedish utility has appointed Stefan Dohler, who heads Vattenfall’s German power transmission operations, as special investigator for the plant, the Stockholm-based company said in an e-mailed statement today.

The 25-year-old Kruemmel reactor stopped on July 4 for the second time in a week following a short circuit in one of its two transformers. In June, the plant returned from a two-year outage caused by a fault in the other transformer, which led to a fire.

The latest incidents are “a bitter setback for all the efforts we made with regards to our safety culture over the last two years,” Tuomo Hatakka, who heads Vattenfall in central Europe, said at a press conference in Berlin. “We are aware that we have lost trust again. We’ll have to earn it anew.”

The company is losing about 1 million euros ($1.4 million) of operating income per day on the halt of its two German nuclear reactors, Hatakka said in an interview today. Two-thirds of that is from the Kruemmel outage, he said.

Vattenfall said this week that it failed to install a device that monitors partial discharges of power at a Kruemmel transformer before resuming operations. The Swedish state-owned utility has said it will replace both transformers at Kruemmel.

Damaged Fuel Rods

Separately, the company expects one or more fuel rods in the plant to be damaged, said Ernst Michael Zuefle, the head of Vattenfall’s nuclear operations in central Europe. The utility will open the reactor’s vessel tomorrow for further inspection of the rods, he told reporters in Berlin today.

Vattenfall saw what it called an “exodus” of customers after its Kruemmel and Brunsbuettel nuclear stations both halted in 2007. Hatakka told reporters today that he sees “sensible solutions” for dealing with clients affected by a disruption in power supplies from the latest incidents.

While Kruemmel’s safety systems worked and the plant is safe, it will be a “long road” to repair the energy supplier’s image, he said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Tony Czuczka in Berlin at aczuczka@bloomberg.netNicholas Comfort at ncomfort1@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: July 9, 2009 06:50 EDT