Summer simulator contract for GSE

Friday, 24 September 2010

Weeks after being awarded a contract to construct the first plant-specific Westinghouse AP1000 plant simulator in the USA, GSE Systems has now won a contract for a plant-specific AP1000 simulator for the VC Summer site. 

 

How a plant based on the AP1000 could look (Image: Westinghouse)

In 2009, GSE announced that it had signed a contract with Westinghouse to model the central nuclear systems of the AP1000 pressurized water reactor for use by US customers. These code modules, it said, would be common to all American AP1000s and would help Westinghouse to demonstrate plant design and control room factors to regulators and potential buyers.

 

The rest of the systems to make finished simulators will vary in detail from plant to plant. The company noted that a simulator at each new build site is included in the scope of work between Westinghouse and its US customers.

 

In late July, GSE reported that it had been awarded the first plant-specific contract to construct an AP1000 simulator in the USA. This was for Southern Company's Vogtle site in Georgia, where preliminary site work has already started for the two AP1000 units, slated to begin operation in 2016 and 2017, subject to regulatory processes already underway.

 

GSE has now announced that it has been awarded a multi-million dollar contract to engineer and build AP1000 simulator models specifically for Scana Corp's VC Summer nuclear power plant site in South Carolina. Scana is the parent company of South Carolina Electric and Gas Co (SCE&G).

 

The AP1000 consortium of Shaw and Westinghouse signed an engineering, procurement and construction contract (EPC) for two 1117 MWe AP1000 reactors at the existing Summer site in May 2008. The first unit could enter commercial operation by 2016, and the second in 2019.

 

John Moran, GSE's CEO, commented: "Besides Southern Company and Scana, eleven additional US customers have selected the AP1000 as the basis for their planned new nuclear plant construction." He added, "As the renaissance continues to slowly gather momentum here in the US, we expect to see additional AP1000 opportunities."

 

Researched and written 

by World Nuclear News