AREVA TN said Monday that it had signed a contract with Xcel Energy to provide wide-ranging dry fuel storage management services for Xcel's Prairie Island and Monticello nuclear generating plants.
Both plants are in Minnesota. Prairrie Island is in Red Wing. Monticello is in a city of the same name with the power plant on the banks of the Mississippi River.
Monticello, operated by Northern States Power Company, an Xcel subsidiary, is a General Electric BWR-3 design that generates 671 MWe. It is licensed through 2030, having had its license extended in November 2006.
Prairie Island is also on the Mississippi. The two Westinghouse pressurized water reactors there produce a total 1,076 MWe. They are licensed for commercial operations through 2033 and 2034, respectively.
AREVA said it had landed a multi-year service contract. AREVA will oversee and perform the removal of nuclear fuel from the Prairie Island reactor’s spent fuel storage pool, its placement in dry storage casks and its secure storage on the site’s existing interim storage pad.
At Monticello, AREVA will deliver and install 10 NUHOMS 61BTH dry fuel storage systems in 2017, and will manage and perform the pool-to-pad process to place the used fuel in the shielded NUHOMS storage modules in 2018.
Greg Vesey, senior vice president of AREVA TN Americas, said the “integrated approach offers utilities a long-term solution that is safe and cost effective.”
AREVA TN has loaded more than 900 canisters at sites across the United States, more than any other supplier in the country, the company said in a statement.