Westinghouse Steam Generator Cleaning Technology Improves Performance at Seabrook Nuclear Power Station

PITTSBURGH, June 22 /PRNewswire/ -- Westinghouse Electric Company achieved a significant improvement in the thermal performance of the Seabrook Nuclear Power Station in Seabrook, N.H., as a result of cleaning the station's four steam generators using the Advanced Scale Conditioning Agent (ASCA) process. The cleaning was completed during a fall 2009 plant refueling outage.

The ASCA cleaning at Seabrook was the twenty-fifth application of the technology for Westinghouse or its licensees since 2002. The ASCA cleaning agents are designed to loosen hardened deposits from the in-bundle areas of the steam generator tube bundles.  Seabrook gained 10 pounds per square inch (psi) of steam pressure after the Westinghouse cleaning and the plant restart, which translates to improved operating efficiencies for the plant. Also during the cleaning process, approximately 2,300 pounds of magnetite corrosion product deposits and copper were removed.

Westinghouse cleaned all four of Seabrook's steam generators in parallel using existing plant connections for the injection and draining of cleaning solutions. The process also integrated the copper and lead removal step into the magnetite removal process, eliminating the need to use a separate copper solvent or solution. Additionally, a reverse osmosis process was used to reduce the waste volume to less than 10,000 gallons, compared to an initial volume of approximately 110,000 gallons.

Using the ASCA process at other locations, Westinghouse has achieved deposit removals of up to 6,000 pounds per plant and accumulated steam pressure increases of greater than 18 psi.  Every application of the ASCA process to date has resulted in clear and sustained increases in steam pressure and reductions in both fouling and tube support blockages.

The ASCA process has been subjected to extensive and essential independent testing and peer reviews over a five-year period in five countries. Applications in the U.S., Japan and Korea are helping utilities to maintain and improve their steam generator performance and thermal hydraulic operating conditions. Qualification testing also is under way in France and Canada.

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 PWR in 1957 in Shippingport, Pa.  Today, Westinghouse technology is the basis for approximately one-half of the world's operating nuclear plants, including 60 percent of those in the United States.

SOURCE Westinghouse Electric Company

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