Significant Engineering Services for Centralised Waste Storage Facility in Spain

Westinghouse Electric Company recently announced that it has received a multi-million dollar contract from ENRESA (Empresa Nacional de Residuos Radiactivos), the Spanish agency responsible for radioactive waste management and nuclear plant decommissioning, to provide the main engineering services for the centralised high-level waste (HLW) and spent fuel interim storage facility (Almacén Temporal Centralizado, or ATC) in Spain.

For this particular contract, Westinghouse will be working in consortium with TRSA S.A. and GHESA S.A., the major partners of EMPRESARIOS AGRUPADOS A.I.E., a leading international provider of engineering and consulting services from Spain. The consortium will be responsible for the main engineering of the project, including a revision of the generic design and developing the detailed engineering of the facility’s main buildings (High-Level Waste Storage, Container Reception and Services and Auxiliary Systems). The engineering scope includes civil, mechanical, electrical and instrumentation and control (I&C), process analysis and the integration of other modules in the project. The project started in April 2013 and is expected to take approximately five years to complete.

“ENRESA is an important long-standing and valued customer, and we are delighted to continue supporting its radioactive waste management and nuclear plant decommissioning programs,” said Javier González, Westinghouse vice president and managing director, Southern Europe. “We believe this most recent contract award reflects ENRESA's high confidence in the quality, reliability and competitiveness of Westinghouse engineering services. In addition, this contract further demonstrates Westinghouse's commitment to the Spanish nuclear market, which we continue to see as very important.”

The interim storage facility located in central Spain could begin operation at the end of 2017 following regulatory approvals, public review and granting of construction and operation licenses. The ATC could store up to some 13,000 cubic meters of waste of which 10,000 cubic meters will be spent fuel and the rest HLW and other long-lived waste not suitable for disposal in the El Cabril repository for low- and intermediate-level nuclear waste in southern Spain.

With this and other recent contracts with ENRESA, a multi-million dollar contract in 2011 to design the waste repository in Bulgaria at Kozloduy, and more than 25 years of experience in a variety of projects across Europe, including nuclear power plants and at other sites in Germany, Sweden, Belgium, Austria, France, Italy and the UK, Westinghouse is a proven leader in supplying decommissioning, dismantling and waste management services.

Westinghouse Electric Company, a group company of Toshiba Corporation (TKY:6502), is the world's pioneering nuclear energy company and is a leading supplier of nuclear plant products and technologies to utilities throughout the world. Westinghouse supplied the world's first pressurized water reactor in 1957 in Shippingport, Pa., U.S. Today, Westinghouse technology is the basis for approximately one-half of the world's operating nuclear plants, including more than 50 percent of those in Europe.

ENRESA was created in 1984 by the Spanish parliament as a non profit-making public entity responsible for the management of radioactive waste. Enresa is in charge of the safe management, storage and disposal of the radioactive wastes produced in Spain. Enresa is also responsible for the dismantling of nuclear power plants when their service lifetime has come to an end and for the environmental restoration of disused uranium mines and facilities.