CHORLEY, United Kingdom, Jan. 7, 2016 - Today, Westinghouse Electric Company announced that the company’s Springfields facility in the United Kingdom has reached the requirements necessary to manufacture Westinghouse Small Modular Reactor (SMR) fuel. A key first for the U.K.’s SMR program, this readiness milestone is an important part of Westinghouse’s proposed partnership with the U.K. government to deploy SMR technology – a move that would advance the U.K. to becoming a global provider of the latest nuclear energy technology.
Westinghouse Springfields fuel facility located in the U.K., and employing more than 1,000, is found fully capable of manufacturing SMR fuel for a global SMR market.
Mick Gornall, managing director, Westinghouse Springfields, said, “Manufacturing Westinghouse SMR fuel at Springfields will secure the future of a strategic national asset of nuclear fuel manufacturing capability and safeguard highly skilled and highly paid U.K. jobs – something that no other SMR technology provider currently offers.”
Westinghouse Springfields achieved this crucial milestone following a readiness assessment based upon fabrication data for two proprietary SMR fuel assemblies manufactured at the company’s Columbia Fuel Fabrication Facility in Columbia, S.C., USA.
“Our program is mature and ready to support the global SMR market, as evidenced by our ability to integrate bona fide reactor and fuel technology for the Westinghouse SMR program, which has been proposed for the U.K. government,” said Jeff Benjamin, senior vice president, New Plants and Major Projects.
Westinghouse Electric Company, a group company of Toshiba Corporation (TKY:6502), is the world's pioneering nuclear energy company and is a leading supplier of nuclear plant products and technologies to utilities throughout the world. Westinghouse supplied the world's first commercial pressurized water reactor in 1957 in Shippingport, Pa., U.S. Today, Westinghouse technology is the basis for approximately one-half of the world's operating nuclear plants, including more than 50 percent of those in Europe.
