SEPI Sociedad Estatal de Participaciones Industriales

For almost 40 Million Euros, it will design and manufacture the pressure barrel of the main generating system for the PBMR (Pebble Bed Modular Reactor) prototype

Last Friday, January 20th, 2006, PBMR (Pty) Ltd. Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Jaco Kriek, and the Chairman of Equipos Nucleares, S.A. (ENSA), a company which belongs to the SEPI Group, Mr. Francisco Ballesteros, signed in Johannesburg (Republic of South Africa) the contract by which ENSA will carry out the design and manufacture of the reactor´s vessel, the piping and the pressure barrel´s auxiliary vessels, of the main generating system of the prototype of the so-called PBMR nuclear reactor.

This contract amounts to 39 Millon Euros, tax no included, and the delivery of the equipment will take place on the Summer of 2009, after a 42-months work. ENSA will enjoy the collaboration of the Spanish company Empresarios Agrupados, S.A. for designing the piping, the auxiliary vessels and the mounting, and of the South African company DB Thermal, as the local partner for the partial building of specific parts.

The above contract means for ENSA´s factory at Maliaño (Cantabria), 14,000 work-hours in engineering, and over 60,000 work-hours in manufacturing, in cutting edge technology.
 

The PBMR Project

It consists in a high-temperature nuclear reactor, refrigerated with Helium gas, which belongs to the kind known as IV Nuclear Generation. The fuel is made up of uranium dioxide (U235), with a half-millimeter diameter, covered by several layers of carbon silicate, called ´kernels´. About 15,000 units of these are encapsulated into a 60-millimeter graphite sphere (the size of a tennis ball) called ´pebble´, and which can operate when the temperature exceeds 1,000 Cº and which are refrigerated with Helium gas inside the reactor´s vessel. In normal operating conditions, the vessel´s reactor contains 456,000 pebbles.

The Helium, once it has been heated, goes out from the vessel and feeds a turbine which, in turn, is connected to an electrical generator. The gas, after it has circulated through the turbine and the compressors, enters into the recovery system, returning again to the vessel, where the cycle begins once again.

This reactor´s power amounts to 165 MW. (the equivalent to 400 thermal MW) and it is considered as modular, being possible to connect several units in sequence.ESKOM (a South African electricity company), Industrial Development Corporation (RSA) and BNFL (British Nuclear Fuels), a consortium in which the majority of the capital is state-owned, basing themselves on previous experiences and technologies, one German (Julich HTR modul) and another English (Dragon Project), have developed, since the year 2000, with the collaboration of an international group of companies, among which is ENSA, this new project PBMR (Pebble Bed Modular Reactor).

On May 2003 ESKOM declared its interest in developing the detailed design of the 165 MW project and the building of a real-size prototype in Koeberg, near Cape Town, where already are located the two South African nuclear power stations. In keeping with the envisaged program, the first demonstration reactor will be ready for starting functioning in 2010, and the first commercial reactor will begin operating in 2013.

On October 2004, the South African Government authorized and leaded the initiative for completing the development and commercialization of this new reactor, and established the goal of reaching in the Republic of South Africa the electrical production of between 4,000 and 5,000 MW, in the next few years, based upon the utilization of the PBMR technology, which translates into the need of having available between 25 and 30 PMBR´s modules, with a unitary power of 165 MW.

With this, the South African Government intends to increase the diversification the sources of electrical power generation and to reduce global polluting emissions, at the same time strengthening the domestic engineering and parts manufacturing capacity destined to the new generation nuclear power stations.

Besides, for the time being, the company PBMR envisages to supply another 10 units to Excelon (USA) and another 10 units to a number of neighboring Central African countries which, besides, might participate in their manufacture.