TVEL to ship first adapted fuel to Czech nuclear plant in April
MOSCOW. Feb 20 (Interfax) - TVEL, a major Russian nuclear fuel company, has for the first time made secondary neutron sources (SNS) for the Temelin Nuclear Power Plant in the Czech Republic.
The first shipment of adapted fuel is scheduled to be made to the customer in April. The contract for the SNS was signed in the first half of 2014.
SNS are used for the controlled launch of a reactor after it has been shut down, including the restoration of the active zone and approach to critical state.
TVEL signed the contract to supply fuel for the Temelin NPP with CEZ Group in 2006 following a tender in which U.S. company Westinghouse also bid. Since SNS were used together with the Westinghouse fuel that was previously loaded in Temelin reactors, the customer asked TVEL to make them.
Several divisions of state nuclear corporation Rosatom - JSC Afrikantov OKBM, Leipunsky Institute of Physics and Power Engineering, JSC MSZ, JSC VNIINM and the Kurchatov Insitute - worked on producing the adapted fuel.
The Czech Republic has two nuclear power plants: Dukovany with four generating units with total capacity of 2,000 MW and Temelin with two units with total capacity of 2,000; both have reactors of Soviet design. TVEL currently supplies fuel to power plants.
TVEL, the sole shareholder of which is Atomenergoprom , consolidates Russian assets in production of nuclear fuel, the separation-sublimation sector, as well as production of gas centrifuges and equipment for them.