The logistics branch of nuclear company Orano at the end of 2019 wrapped up the transfer to dry storage of spent fuel canisters with the highest heat load to date at U.S. power plants, according to a Jan. 15 press release.
At the customer’s request, Orano is not identifying the nuclear power plant where the operation occurred, spokesman Curtis Roberts said last week. He also said only that the “pool to pad” operation was completed at the end of the year.
Orano TN transferred 296 used fuel assemblies from the facility’s cooling pool to its independent spent fuel storage installation (ISFSI) within eight NUHOMS EOS 379PTH canisters, the release says.
The average head load of the canisters was 44.75 kilowatts. Heat load is used to measure the decay heat of spent fuel.
The Orano Extended Optimized Storage system “is the first dry storage system to load and store used nuclear fuel with heat loads well above industry experience to date, which has ranged between 14-34 kW per canister,” the release says.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has licensed the Orano system to hold material with heat loads as high as 50 kilowatts per canister.
Spent fuel is moved out of cooling pools when it is considered safe for dry storage. The Orano technology provides operators of active and retired nuclear power plants with greater flexibility to schedule the transfer, as the necessary cooling period will be shorter, Roberts said.
He said discussions are underway for contracts at additional power plants, but could not discuss details.