Joint venture begins component production

Monday, 19 December 2011 KW Nuclear Components Co (KWN) has begun production of control element assemblies (CEAs) for nuclear power plants based on Combustion Engineering designs. Combustion Engineering was acquired by Westinghouse Electric Co in 2000 through its purchase of Asea Brown Boveri's nuclear businesses. A CEA is a cluster of control rods which are moved by a single drive mechanism into or out of a fuel element in order to control the nuclear reaction within a reactor core. The first order of 56 CEAs will be delivered to unit 5 of South Korea's Yonggwang plant in February 2012. KWN was formed in 2008 for the fabrication of CEAs, with Westinghouse holding a 55% stake and Kepco Nuclear Fuel Co (KNF) holding 45%. The construction of a CEA production facility at KNF's fuel fabrication plant in Daejeon, South Korea, was completed in April 2011. KNF itself is over 96% owned by Korea Electric Power Corp (Kepco) and supplies all the fuel for Korea's pressurized water reactors (PWRs) and Candu units. The APR-1400 under construction at Shin Kori unit 4 had earlier been expected to include the first control elements manufactured by KWN.