UK-based global industrial technology group Rolls-Royce has been awarded a multimillion-euro contract to supply Neutron Flux Monitoring Systems to two nuclear reactors being built in China. The contract is from the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) and will be executed by Rolls-Royce Instrumentation and Controls (I&C), which is based in Grenoble in France. The exact value of the contract has not been released.
“For more than 25 years, we have been collaborating with CNNC in China,” pointed out Rolls-Royce Civil Nuclear France business unit director Stéphane Lessi. “We are delighted to have signed this new contract, which is further proof of the confidence that CNNC places in our I&C technologies and in our people.”
Rolls-Royce will supply complete systems to both the Zhangzhou 1 and Zhangzhou 2 reactors. Both these reactors are Chinese Hualong One (also known as HPR1000) designs.
The complete systems include ex-core neutron detectors, cables, connectors and the associated neutron detectors, and use Rolls-Royce’s Spinline digital safety I&C safety technology. Spinline is installed on more than 90 nuclear reactors around the world.
“The Neutron Flux Monitoring System is a key system for the safety and availability of nuclear reactors, since it measures the neutron flux of the reactor, and thus continuously and instantly monitors its power, the fluctuations of that power, as well as its axial and radial distribution within the reactor,” explained Rolls-Royce. The systems will be designed, built and tested in Grenoble by Rolls-Royce I&C, and installed and commissioned by CNNC under the guidance of I&C teams from France.
More than 130 of the group’s Neutron Flux Monitoring Systems have been installed or selected for nuclear reactors around the world, including 42 in China. Rolls-Royce I&C employs almost 550 people in Grenoble, and the I&C systems that they produce have been installed on almost 150 reactors around the world, including all the nuclear reactors operating in France.