Significant Progress Achieved in 2006

AECL and its partners in the Cernavoda 2 project have successfully set the stage for startup of the Romania-based nuclear power plant following the project’s transition from construction to commissioning phase last year.

At the end of 2006, the project was more than 98 per cent complete, with startup planned for this summer.

A consortium of AECL and Ansaldo Energia of Italy, with owner Societatea Nationala Nuclearelectrica (SNN), is managing the completion of the partial construction of the Cernavoda Unit 2 power plant - the second in a series of CANDU 6™ power plants that began construction in the early 1980s.

Cernavoda Unit 1, which started commercial operation more than a decade ago in December 1996, has since been successfully operating with an average capacity factor of more than 87 per cent.

AECL and Ansaldo were contracted in 2003 to complete construction and commissioning of Unit 2, about 50 per cent complete and with much of the original large equipment already installed. The startup of the plant will bring Romania’s reliance on clean and reliable nuclear power to approximately 18 per cent.

The consortium’s scope of work has included home office engineering; procurement; specialized technical services; work orders as required during implementation; site management services, including project management, engineering, material management, construction management and commissioning, performed through an integrated management team (MT) at the site. The MT is comprised of personnel from AECL, Ansaldo and SNN.

“Owing to the length of time the plant was in a suspended state and the need to bring the plant into service, many unique elements had to be considered,” said Larry Powers, AECL Project Director for Cernavoda. “Some of the challenges we addressed were bringing into service major equipment that had been inspected and refurbished, including circulating cooling water pumps and motors, raw service water pumps and motors, and all major motors in the Nuclear Steam Plant and reactivity mechanism drives; the inspection and refurbishment of more than 4,500 valves; and stress analysis of pipe supports and resulting on-site modifications, all of which progressed very well.”

Some of the numerous highlights that occurred during the past year included:

• Turnover to commissioning of virtually all systems of the project
• Successful delivery and loading of heavy water in the moderator system
• Successful delivery and storage of nuclear fuel
• Completion of the reactor building proof pressure and leak rate test that focused on protecting the public and keeping the project schedule on track. The tests demonstrated that the containment structure is able to withstand maximum pressure during normal and accident conditions and that possible leaks will not exceed permitted levels.
• Successful on-site repairs to pressurizer and degasser condenser weld defects on nozzles incurred during manufacturing in the 1980s
• Hot conditioning of the primary heat transport system, the Emergency Core Cooling dynamic test fire and standby diesel generator load testing was completed

Manual loading of the fuel into the reactor will start in late January 2007; the unit will achieve criticality in early April; first synchronization and connection to the grid will occur in May; and the plant will be in service in June 2007, said Mr. Powers.

“With the successes of 2006 under our belts, the team at Cernavoda continues to work hard to achieve the ultimate end goal of completing this critical project on time, on budget and with the safety of our employees, the public and the environment foremost in our minds,” said Mr. Powers. “There are still challenges we will need to address, but we are confident in our ability to deliver excellence for our customer.”