Westinghouse Places Second Containment Vessel Ring for Lead Vogtle AP1000® Unit

Waynesboro, Ga., Dec. 13, 2016 – Westinghouse Electric Company today announced the successful placement of the second containment vessel ring at Vogtle Unit 3, the lead AP1000 nuclear power plant unit under construction at the Vogtle site. The ring is the third of five sections that constitute the AP1000 plant containment vessel, a high-integrity steel structure that houses the reactor vessel and other critical plant systems.

“The containment vessel is an integral safety component of the plant, providing a robust barrier and serving an important function in the plant’s passive containment cooling system,” said Jeff Benjamin, Westinghouse senior vice president, New Plants and Major Projects. “Setting the second containment vessel ring changes the Vogtle skyline and is the latest in a series of notable construction milestones at the site, where we completed two major equipment and module placements in recent weeks as part of our delivery progress.”

Other recent milestones at the Vogtle site included placement of the Unit 3 reactor vessel on Nov. 23 and the Unit 4 CA01 structural module on Nov. 21.

Fabricated from multiple courses of steel plates, the containment vessel ring weighs 1,119 metric tons, and is more than 15 meters high and nearly 40 meters in diameter. Steel platforms, equipment supports and an HVAC ring duct were added to the ring prior to placement as a delivery improvement that will enhance constructability and save schedule time.

The ring placement follows the setting of the containment vessel bottom head and first containment vessel ring; a third ring and the containment vessel top head will complete the structure. The finished containment vessel will stand more than 60 meters tall.

In addition to the two AP1000 units at Vogtle for Georgia Power Company, Westinghouse also is constructing two AP1000 units at the V.C. Summer site in Jenkinsville, S.C., for South Carolina Electric and Gas Company. In China, Westinghouse is nearing completion of the world’s first four AP1000 units, at the Sanmen and Haiyang sites, with commissioning tests underway for the lead units at each site.