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Finnish TVO takes delivery of new-generation BWR fuel

Thursday, 28 February 2019

The first eight Westinghouse Triton11 fuel assemblies have been delivered to Finnish utility Teollisuuden Voima Oy's Olkiluoto plant. The new assemblies will be loaded into Olkiluoto 2 during the unit's upcoming outage.

Finnish TVO takes delivery of new-generation BWR fuel — The first Triton11 assemblies were delivered last week (Image: Westinghouse)

Westinghouse says Triton11, its first 11x11 BWR fuel design, represents a new generation of BWR fuel, developed to significantly reduce fuel cycle costs and increase overall fuel reliability. The fuel has three central water channels - known as water rods - and is optimised for efficiency in 12- and 24-month cycles, as well as for uprated cores and higher burnups.

A Triton11 assembly contains 91 full-length fuel rods, ten one-third-length rods and eight two-thirds-length rods, in addition to the three water rods. The water rods are connected to the bottom tie plate and top handle, which altogether constitute the load bearing structure of the fuel bundle. This ensures a robust load chain, and allows fuel rods to be freed from external forces during handling and operation.

The assemblies were made at Westinghouse’s fuel manufacturing facility in Västerås, Sweden.

A delivery of ten Triton11 fuel assemblies is to be made to OKG's Oskarshamn nuclear power plant in Sweden in the middle of this year.