Spanish Nuclear Vandellos II Finishes the 18th Refueling Outage

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Córdoba, Argentina)--Asociación Nuclear Asco Vandellós (ANAV) (Tarragona, Spain) has finished the 18th refueling outage of the Vandellós II nuclear power plant. The maintenance began on Saturday, May 26, and ended on Friday, July 13. Of all the work performed in this outage, it was most important to replace the power generation switch. The facility was equipped with an ABB Limited (NYSE:ABB) hexafluoride technology switch generator. One of the advantages of this equipment is that it does not need auxiliary systems to function.

Another important procedure was the modification of the fire protection pipe, located in the control room building. This modification reduces the potential risk of internal flooding. To prevent this, the pipes have been removed from the ground floor and were installed with protective barriers in the access doors to electrical equipment enclosures. The inspection of control rod guide tubes also was performed. To carry out these works, more than 1,000 people were hired from 65 subsidiary companies.

The facility, located in Tarragona, Catalonia region, is equipped with a 1,087-megawatt (MW) Mitsubishi Power Systems (Tokyo, Japan) steam turbine, with a pressurized water reactor (PWR) manufactured by Westinghouse Electric Corporation (Pittsburg, Pennsylvania).

ANAV is an economic interest group owned by Endesa (Madrid, Spain) and Iberdrola S.A. (Bilbao, Spain). Endesa owns 72% of Vandellos II, while Iberdrola owns 28%.

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