How the European pressurised water reactor fulfils the utility requirements

The European pressurised water reactor (EPR) is a project pursued by Electricite de France and the major German utilities (RWEE, PreussenElektra, BAG et al.) on the utility side and SIEMENS, Framatome and their common subsidiary NPI on the designer side. In this project, the experience gained through the design, the erection, the commissioning and the operation of the existing PWR in France and Germany are combined and the existing technical solutions were carefully compared and checked before integration into the EPR. The deep involvement of the future operators since the beginning of the project has the objective of optimising the operational behaviour and making maintenance as easy as possible. (orig.)