Westinghouse Electric Company has been awarded a contract by ENRESA (Empresa Nacional de Residuos Radiactivos), the Spanish agency responsible for radioactive waste management and nuclear plant decommissioning, to segment the reactor vessel head (RVH) and reactor vessel (RV) at the Jose Cabrera Nuclear Power Station (also known as Zorita).

The contract represents the first time a Westinghouse designed pressurized water reactor (PWR) vessel will be segmented in Spain and second in Europe.

The contract covers the dismantling and segmentation of the RVH and RV, including the up-front engineering studies. It also includes the design of the RVH/RV detachment, manipulation and lifting to the spent fuel pool where mechanical cutting of the components will take place.

Westinghouse will be the lead contractor for the project, and MONLAIN and VSL will be the main subcontractors. The project began in June 2013 and is expected to take approximately two years to complete.

"Westinghouse is proud to have been selected by ENRESA to continue the dismantling and decommissioning works on the Zorita reactor," said Javier Gonzalez, Westinghouse vice president and managing director, Southern Europe.

"We have been working closely with ENRESA since its creation in 1986, and more recently when Westinghouse was awarded the contract to dismantle the Zorita reactor vessel internals in July 2010."

Zorita, a 142 MWe Westinghouse PWR operated by Gas Natural Fenosa, was closed by ministerial order in April 2006, after 38 years in operation. In February 2010, Gas Natural Fenosa transferred the plant's ownership to ENRESA.

Westinghouse was contracted to perform reactor vessel dismantling services in December 2009 at Electricite de France's (EdF) Chooz A nuclear reactor in France. The first of a three-reactor plant, Chooz A was shut down in 1991 after an operational life of 24 years. It will become the first PWR in France to be fully dismantled.

With this and other recent contracts with ENRESA, a multi-million dollar contract in 2011 to design the waste repository in Bulgaria at Kozloduy, and more than 25 years of experience in a variety of projects across Europe, including nuclear power plants and at other sites in Germany, Sweden, Belgium, Austria, France, Italy and the UK, Westinghouse is a proven leader in supplying decommissioning, dismantling and waste management services.