Systems contract for new Slovak reactors

Tuesday, 27 April 2010

An Areva-Siemens consortium has been awarded a contract to supply the digital safety and instrumentation and control (I&C) systems for two new VVER units at the Mochovce nuclear power plant in Slovakia.

 

Mochovce units 3 and 4 (Image: Slovenské Electrárne)

Under the contract, Areva will equip Mochovce units 3 and 4 with its Teleperm XS safety I&C system, while Siemens will provide the reactors with its SPPA-T2000 operational I&C system. The systems are the same as those used in Areva EPR units currently under construction in China, Finland and France.

 

In 1981, construction of the four-unit Mochovce nuclear power plant was commenced by Skoda, using Russian-design VVER 440/213 pressurized water reactor units. Work on units 3 and 4 was started in 1986 and halted in 1992. The first two were completed in 1998 and 2000, respectively, to supply 440 MWe each. Units 1 and 2 have been significantly upgraded and the instrument and control systems replaced with assistance from western companies. Units 3 and 4 - also VVER-440 units - remained partly built.

 

Slovenské Electrárne, which is 66% owned by Italian utility Enel, officially started the €2.8 billion ($3.6 billion) project to complete the two new units at Mochovce in early November 2008. Units 3 and 4 are scheduled to be commissioned in 2012 and 2013, respectively.

 

The Mochovce contract is the latest in a series awarded to Areva for supplying safety I&C systems to Russian-designed VVER reactors. These include Units 1 and 2 at Mochovce and Units 3 and 4 at the Bohunice plants in Slovakia; units 1-4 of the Paks plant in Hungary; Kozloduy 5 and 6 in Bulgaria; units 1-4 of the Dukovany plant in the Czech Republic; and Tianwan 1 and 2 in China.

 

Areva and Siemens are currently performing the comprehensive modernization of the I&C systems at units 1 and 2 of the Loviisa plant in Finland, also based on VVER-type reactors.

 

In late January, Areva signed a contract with the Russian Research Institute for Nuclear Power Plant Operation (VNIIAES) – a subsidiary of Rosatom Corp – for the supply of the Teleperm XS system for one of the two new 1200 MWe VVER-type reactors to be built at phase II of the Novovoronezh plant in Russia.

 

Under that contract, Areva will deliver the system to VNIIAES' test centre in Russia by the end of 2010. The first unit of Novovoronezh phase II is scheduled to be connected to the grid in 2012.

 

Areva signed a similar contract with VNIIAES in 2008 for the supply of a Teleperm XS system to be used in the modernization of the Kola nuclear power plant in northern Russia.

 

Researched and written

by World Nuclear News