Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has agreed with Iberdrola Ingenieria y Construccion on a collaborative venture to bid for nuclear power plant construction in in some European countries. The two companies have already signed a memorandum of understanding to co-operate on an exclusive basis for the qualification process to a European utility. Through this collaborative initiative MHI aims to accelerate market penetration of its EU-APWR, at 1700 MWe one of the world’s largest advanced pressurised water reactors, targeted at major European utilities. The agreement is MHI’s first collaborative partnership with a European company relating to the EU-APWR.
Based on the MOU, MHI will be responsible for overall engineering of the NPP and major NPP components and equipment while Iberdrola will take charge of installation work and design, procurement and commissioning of the nuclear island.
MHI developed the EU-APWR from the 1538 MW APWR planned for the Tsuruga Power Station Units 3 and 4 for the Japan Atomic Power Company. Design changes were made to reflect European regulations and the demand of EU customers for enhanced operating performance. Like the similarly sized US-APWR, MHI’s APWR for the US market, improvements for greater economic efficiency were incorporated, including larger components and greater power generation capacity; an automatic safety system and design improvements also enable the world’s highest level of thermal efficiency. Currently MHI is conducting a feasibility study of the EU-APWR for compliance with European safety requirements.
In Europe there is a trend to increase generating capacity by either newly introducing or resuming nuclear power generation. If this trend continues, several dozen new NPPs may be built in Europe by 2030.
