Advanced Nuclear Power Jan2002

Advanced Nuclear Power - The Magazine of Framatome ANP

A complete restructuring of the nuclear energy industry has evolved in recent years. Utilities are merging to leverage their buying power and reduce costs; vendors are merging to expand their product lines and markets. To secure their position at the forefront of the industry, Framatome and Siemens merged their nuclear activities in 2001 into Framatome ANP. This merger resulted in an extensive portfolio of products and services. In the nuclear fuel area, the company offers a broad range of the most technologically advanced products for both PWRs and BWRs on a worldwide basis.

New Market Structure, New Customer Requirements
New requirements demand flexibility and often a new organization. The reorganization of the electric utility industry, to a large degree, has been completed, and the reduction in the number of players is now irreversible. Because their customers are now in a stronger bargaining position and have higher expectations, particularly for lower fuel-cycle costs and for better product reliability, suppliers to this market must adapt to these changes.

The Solution: A New Company
The complementary nature of Framatome's and Siemens' nuclear activities - on the geographical, technological and product fronts - is particularly apparent in Framatome ANP's fuel business. The company has supplied more than 95,000 PWR and more than 46,000 BWR fuel assemblies to nuclear plants in Europe, Asia, the US, South America and South Africa. Framatome ANP today, is a world leader in both the PWR and BWR markets providing a wide range of high-performance fuels as well as a variety of engineering and on-site services.

Fuel designs like the ATRIUM™ 10 for BWRs and the ALLIANCE™ for PWRs use advanced technology to maximize burnup capability and extend fuel cycles. These fuel assemblies are noted for their high operational reliability and excellent fuel utilization to reduce fuel cycle costs. In addition, they can be manufactured with enriched natural uranium as well as enriched reprocessed uranium (ERU) or mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel.

Technological innovations to improve fuel reliability and performance cross product lines; for instance, the M5™ cladding material technology, developed by Framatome ANP and renowned for its reduced corrosion rate and effectiveness, will become the reference product for all PWR fuel rods. Other emerging technologies continuously are being investigated and developed to offer customers the latest innovations at the best value.

Resources, including test facilities, were pooled to create a research and development program that addresses all aspects of fuel assembly design, manufacturing, and materials as well as reactor core design, safety-parameter analysis tools, and design code development. This global R&D program also will help preserve key skills in the nuclear business. In addition, the extensive experience and capabilities of Siemens and Framatome enable Framatome ANP to combine the best practices from both companies and apply economies of scale to help reduce fuel-cycle costs. And last, but not least, effective process management and adherence to the guidelines of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) will optimize the new company's ability to listen and respond to customer requirements.

When a market restructures itself, as the nuclear energy market has, vendors need to restructure to meet and exceed their customers' needs. Framatome ANP was created precisely for that reason, and for that reason, utilities around the globe can rely on Framatome ANP to meet all their fuel needs.

A Complete Portfolio Of Fuel Products
Framatome ANP has the most complete product portfolio for the light water reactor fuel market currently available in the world. It offers the ATRIUM family of fuel assemblies for BWRs and the AFA 3G, HTP, FOCUS, Mark-B, Mark-BW, and ALLIANCE fuel for PWRs. ALLIANCE, the most recent fuel assembly design for PWRs, was developed jointly by American and French teams. It can be used in reactors currently in service as well as in the next generation of advanced reactors. It is designed to achieve a burnup rate of at least 70 MWd/kgU. The next generation BWR fuel design, ATRIUM 10XP, is an advanced version of the record-breaking ATRIUM 10. Lead assemblies will be loaded for the first time in mid-2002.

Grouping In The Energy Sector: A World Trend
In response to increasing competition in deregulated energy markets, most of the electric utilities regrouped themselves. Take, for example, the new holdings of EDF in EnBW (Germany), London Electricity, Montedison (Italy), and in Latin American utilities; E.ON (Germany), formed by the merger of Preussenelektra and Bayernwerk; the new holdings of Vattenfall (Sweden) in HEW (Germany); and, in the United States, the creation of Exelon, formed by the merger of PECO and Unicom; and creation of the Nuclear Management Company that operates five nuclear power plants in the Midwestern US. These recent restructurings have led to the formation of even more powerful and demanding user groups, who are looking for a complete, and economical portfolio of fuel products that can extend fuel cycles reliably and safely. This trend, finally led also to new formations of the main players on the vendor's side: in 1999, the British company BNFL acquired the nuclear activities of Westinghouse and shortly after, in 2000, it acquired the Swiss-Swedish company, ABB. At the same time, GE, Hitachi and Toshiba were grouped together into Global Nuclear Fuel. And, last but not least, in January 2001, the merger of the nuclear activities of Framatome and Siemens resulted in Framatome ANP becoming the world leader in products and services.

Focus On Performance
Framatome ANP will continue its ongoing work to improve fuels in close collaboration with its customers. The objective to continually reduce fuel-cycle costs, and thus the cost per kWh, can be achieved by improving irradiation performance and fuel assembly reliability.

One central target of this work is to increase fuel enrichment up to 5% U235 isotope content (the current regulatory limit for manufacturing and transport) to achieve a fuel assembly burnup of approximately 70 MWd/kgU.

Developing fuel assembly designs that can achieve such high performance entails the use of test assemblies in rigorous qualification programs. Test assemblies already are being irradiated in European and American reactors, and the operating feedback is completely satisfactory. For example, ATRIUM- type assemblies achieved a record burnup rate of 71 MWd/kgU in a European BWR in 2001.