OPG subsidiary wins contract to support refurbishment of Romania’s Cernavoda 1 reactor
23 February 2021
Laurentis Energy Partners, a subsidiary of Canada’s Ontario Power Generation. On 18 Fenruary announced a €3.156 million ($3.8m) contract award, through its subsidiary Canadian Nuclear Partners, to support refurbishment at Romania's Cernavoda NPP. The contract from Romanian utility Societatea Nationala Nuclearelectrica (SNN) calls on Laurentis to develop a conservation programme to protect the integrity of the Cernavoda 1 reactor while it is drained of water during refurbishment.
Cernavoda has two commercially operational Candu 6 pressurised heavy water reactors, which were supplied by Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd and built under the supervision of a Canadian-Italian consortium of AECL and Ansaldo. Construction of the two-unit station began in the early 1980s.
The Laurentis contract with SNN includes a €1.5 million subcontract to Framatome, in Germany, to use their proprietary Film Forming Amine (FFA) technology. FAA has been deployed in the Darlington NPP refurbishment in Canada to conserve and protect water-steam systems while dry, reducing or preventing the need for maintenance.
Work by Laurentis at Cernavoda will occur in two stages. The contract award is for phase 1, system analysis and design engineering, over 21 months in 2021 and 2022. Phase 2 is implementation, following regulatory approval for SNN's refurbishment, scheduled to move forward in 2026-27. In Romania, Laurentis operates as Canadian Nuclear Partners (CNP), a subsidiary incorporated in Romania in 2019 and part of the country's regulated nuclear industry. Laurentis opened its office in Bucharest in 2020.
