Framatome signs multimillion-dollar contract with Dominion Energy to provide fleet-wide steam generator services

(MAY 17, 2018) —Framatome signed a multimillion-dollar contract with Dominion Energy to provide steam generator services to the company’s entire nuclear reactor fleet. Scheduled to take place during eight outages from 2018 to 2020, the inspection and maintenance work will support the continued generation of low-carbon electricity from the Dominion fleet.

At nuclear energy facilities, steam generators play an integral role by converting water into steam using the heat created in the reactor core. This steam drives the turbines that help produce electricity.

“Our experts have decades of experience with steam generator inspections, which allows us to develop systems to complete these inspections more efficiently and at a lower cost to our customers,” said Catherine Cornand, senior executive vice president of Framatome’s Installed Base Business Unit. “That means these facilities are back in service faster, providing reliable electricity to homes and businesses.”

The Framatome team will deploy Trident, its next-generation steam generator inspection system, as part of these services. This technology reduces dose and inspection time, while improving safety and human performance, by utilizing robots like the recently added FORERUNNER.

FORERUNNER is a light, mobile robot. Its spider-like movements in all working positions, on horizontal or vertical tubesheets, easily adapt to different steam generator geometries. It can also calculate the optimal inspection path using an intelligent path algorithm, which can decrease inspection time by 30 to 50 percent.

Framatome will service the steam generators during scheduled outages at the Millstone Power Station in Waterford, Connecticut; the North Anna Power Station in Mineral, Virginia; and the Surry Power Station in Surry, Virginia.