Westinghouse Electric said Thursday its purchase of the Multibus I production line from U.S. Technologies Inc. was done to ensure continuity of service to 41 operating nuclear power reactors at 25 sites around the globe.
Those sites rely on EAGLE, Eagle 21 and other Multibus I safety systems that are critical to plant operations, Westinghouse said.
In addition, the move will allow plants to maintain other safety systems using any of the Multibus I product line, such as reactor vessel level instrumentation, neutron flux monitoring, and plant safety monitoring, the company said in a statement.
In Tokyo, this week, the chief executive officer of Toshiba, which owns 87 percent of Westinghouse Electric said that the company was looking for a partner in the nuclear power business. CEO Masashi Muromachi told reporters the company's loss of earning power was attributed to an accounting scandal that has also led to an overhaul of company management and flattened stock values.
“The environment for the nuclear business is tough in Japan, and we need to address various issues to meet revised U.S. regulatory rules,” Reuters quoted the CEO as saying at a roundtable forum with reporters.
Toshiba bought its majority stake in Westinghouse in 2006, paying $5.4 billion. Five years later, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster shook global confidence in nuclear power and, in the United States, the decreasing price of natural gas has undermined the industry's growth potential.