Category: Holtec Highlights

The BGV Group of Ukraine and Holtec International are pleased to announce their decision to enter into a joint venture to develop Ukraine’s untapped mineral resources by building a range of mining, processing and manufacturing facilities to help accelerate the country’s industrialization.  Instead of extracting and exporting minerals, the joint venture envisages using them to make finished products and metal forms such as forgings, castings and extrusions in special purpose processing plants within the country. These plants will offer well-paying jobs to the local work force and help strengthen the country’s industrial economy. Thus, nature’s gifts buried in the land will be extracted to help build a vertically integrated industrial infrastructure that will enable Ukraine to move up the value-added supply chain in world markets. The endeavors of the joint venture are expected to serve a range of industries such as chemical, petrochemical, and energy generation. 

The winter meeting of the Holtec Advisory Council for SMR-160, held on February 8, 2019 in Jupiter, Florida, was led by the incoming chairman, Michael Rencheck, CEO of Bruce Power, Canada. The meeting was attended by invited industry experts from several leading organizations, including Bruce Power, Energoatom (Ukraine), Entergy, Exelon Generation, Southern, Talen Energy, NEI, SNC-Lavalin, Mitsubishi Electric, and several major suppliers which constituted a robust review team encompassing virtually all aspects of the SMR-160 program. The international contingent consisted of business and technology leaders from Canada, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine and the United Arab Emirates. The large contingent of participants (over 40) reflected the growing industry enthusiasm for the SMR-160 technology. Several milestone announcements (noted below) at the conference underscored the growing recognition of SMR-160 as a viable contributor to humankind’s drive for carbon-free energy generation.

At Holtec, 2018 will be remembered as the year when the Company’s four-year quest to launch its decommissioning program reached a successful milestone. Three nuclear power plants, including Exelon’s Oyster Creek Generating Station, and Entergy’s Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station and Palisades Nuclear Generating Station, as well as the site of the decommissioned Big Rock Point Nuclear Power Plant near Charlevoix, Michigan, where only the Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI) remains, are under purchase/sale agreements to transfer their licenses, spent fuel and Nuclear Decommissioning Trusts to Holtec for accelerated decommissioning subject to U.S. NRC’s concurrence. As of this writing, the U.S. NRC has accepted the License Transfer Applications for these agreements. In another strategic development, Holtec and SNC-Lavalin (Canada) established a joint venture company named Comprehensive Decommissioning International, LLC (CDI) to carry out decommissioning projects around the world. Holtec’s subsidiary, Holtec Decommissioning International (HDI), will hold the Plants’ licenses and manage the Company’s nuclear assets. CDI and HDI are off to a running start, both dedicated to the safe, rapid, and economic decommissioning of shut down nuclear power plants.

RIVNE, UKRAINE, Dec 5, 2018; Representatives from Ukraine’s government, parliament, and various sectors of industry witnessed the culmination of a successful series of tests at the Rivne Nuclear Power Plant (RNPP) that validated the various critical functions of Holtec-supplied equipment and systems for the country’s soon-to-be-operational Central Spent Fuel Storage Facility(CSFSF) (which is known as the “Consolidated Interim Storage Facility”in the United States). The first set of tests included successful verification of the functionality of the (patented) forced helium dehydration system, lift yokes, rail car, etc. – all supplied by Holtec International. The final test involved heavy load handling evolutions demonstrated by handling and maneuvering of the HI-TRAC transfer cask from the rail car to the main reactor hall of RNPP. Photos of various components are shown below. 

Camden, December 4, 2018: Speaking to a gathering of nuclear industry professionals, Holtec’s President and CEO, Dr. Kris Singh, called a decent basic wage a fundamental human right and announced that Holtec will celebrate the holiday season by raising the minimum base (standard time) wage for its work force at every one of its US plants to $15 per hour.  “This pay raise is a small measure of my appreciation for the hard-working individuals at all Holtec campuses.”

We are pleased to report successful dry storage implementations of both PWR and BWR multi-purpose canisters (MPCs) in HI-STORM vertical ventilated modules at numerous nuclear plant sites, setting new records in their curie content and heat load.  Out of the total of 170 HI-STORM systems loaded thus far, 135 have been loaded by Holtec’s own site services group. The total number of Holtec systems loaded globally to date stands at 1235 at this writing. The nuclear units that have increased their dry storage population of HI-STORM vertical ventilated systems (VVMs) in 2018 are (in alphabetical order): Browns Ferry (TVA), Callaway (Ameren), Clinton (Exelon), Comanche Peak (Luminant), Diablo Canyon (PG&E), D.C. Cook (American Electric Power), Farley (Southern Nuclear), Pilgrim (Entergy), SONGS (Southern California Edison), Vermont Yankee (Entergy), Vogtle (Southern Nuclear) and Watts Bar (TVA).

In a festive signing ceremony in Mumbai on November 21, Maharashtra’s Chief Minister Mr. Devendra Fadnavis hosted the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Holtec Asia to establish a manufacturing facility that would give India autonomous capability to produce systems and components to support the country’s planned expansion of nuclear generation. While the plant, preliminarily named “Holtec Heavy Manufacturing Division” (HHMD), primarily intended to fabricate complex and safety-related equipment for the nuclear power plants, it will also be equipped to meet the heavy weldment needs of petroleum, chemical, aerospace and other industries. The plant will operate under Holtec’s corporate nuclear and personnel safety programs which are applied uniformly across Holtec’s global operation centers in the US and abroad.  

Entergy Corp. and Holtec International, through their affiliates, asked the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) today to approve the sale of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station to Holtec after shutdown. Holtec plans to complete decommissioning and site restoration decades sooner than if Entergy completed decommissioning.

We are pleased to announce that the US Small Business Administration has approved the Mentor-Protégé Application between Gilmartin Engineering Works, Inc. (Protégé) and Holtec International (Mentor) under All Small Mentor-Protégé Program (ASMPP).

Energy Secretary Rick Perry toured Holtec’s Advanced Manufacturing Division and Operations Center at the Company’s Krishna P. Singh (KPS) Technology Campus in Camden, New Jersey on October 25, 2018.