A consortium led by Westinghouse Electric Company has been awarded a contract to dismantle the unit 1 reactor pressure vessel (RPV) and its internals at Germany's Philippsburg NPP, the company said. The reactor, operated by EnBW Kernkraft (EnKK), was commercially shut down in 2011.
The contract covers the planning, equipment manufacture and onsite segmentation of the RPV internals and the RPV, including peripheral structures. Westinghouse did not say how much the contract was worth. The contract will be executed by a consortium comprising Nukem Technologies Engineering Services and GNS Gesellschaft für Nuklear-Service under the lead of Westinghouse Electric Germany. Nukem Technologies is a 100% subsidiary of JSC Atomstroyexport, part of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom.
The work will be carried out under the direction of EnKK after the decommissioning licence is granted by Baden-Württemberg's ministry of the environment, climate and energy. Philippsburg 1, an 890MWe boiling water reactor unit, began commercial operation in March 1980. EnKK applied for the "final and permanent" decommissioning of Philippsburg 1 and for the initial demolition permit in May 2013 and expects the decommissioning and dismantling phase to take 15-20 years.
Philippsburg 1 was among the older reactor units that Chancellor Angela Merkel forced to close early in the week of the Fukushima accident in March 2011. It was expected to continue operation until 2017. The newer Philippsburg 2 unit is scheduled to shut down in 2019.
