Partner 5

AREVA NP with its Plants Business Unit is involved in every aspect of nuclear steam supply system and nuclear island construction, from design through to connection to the grid, and provides services for reactor service life extension, performance enhancement and renovation. The Plants BU also supply second-generation reactors that are better suited to some customers’ requirements, as well as research reactors for a variety of research organizations. With 100,000 MWe of installed power and around 100 reactors in service, AREVA is the global market leader and offers:

  • 2 types of light water reactor: Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR), and Boiling Water Reactors (BWR)
  • second and third-generation generation reactors: EPR (the most advanced PWR) and SWR1000 (the most recent BWR model).

The Fuel Business Unit designs, fabricates and markets nuclear fuel assemblies for pressurized water reactors (PWR), boiling water reactors (BWR) and research reactors. A fuel assembly is made up of fuel rods (metal tubes) containing uranium oxide pellets (the fissile material), held in a metal frame (the skeleton) which is usually made of zirconium alloy. The Fuel BU also supplies MOX (a mixture of uranium and plutonium oxides) and ERU (Enriched Reprocessed Uranium) fuels, using fissile materials obtained during the recycling of spent fuel. With almost 40% market share, AREVA is the world leader in the manufacture of fuel for PWR and BWR reactors.

The Nuclear Services Business Unit offers services that enable utilities to improve power plant availability and productivity while reducing costs and maintaining a high level of safety. These services include inspection, maintenance, component repair and replacement, engineering and upgrades. AREVA offers the world's most complete range of service expertise for PWR, BWR and VVER type reactors. Services are generally performed during reactors outages, which are scheduled every 12, 18 or 24 months, depending on the operating mode of the reactor. The business unit’s French, German and American employees participated in more than 110 reactor outages around the world in 2007.

The Equipment Business Unit manufactures key equipment for nuclear power plants:

  • heavy components: reactor vessels, steam generators, reactor vessel heads, etc.
  • moving components: reactor coolant pump sets and control rod drive mechanisms.

In 2006, the Equipment BU acquired Creusot Forge (SFARSTEEL), one of the world’s leading manufacturers of the very large forgings used to make these components, and sold the non-nuclear, electromechanical activities of JSPM (formerly Jeumont S.A.) in order to refocus its core business. AREVA is the world’s leading manufacturer of nuclear equipment.

last change: 26.03.2009 | | Print