How a nuclear vendor can contribute to improving nuclear power plant competitiveness

It has been possible to gain the equivalent of an extra 2000 MW for the plants currently in operation in the Federal Republic of Germany by exploiting system and component design margins and optimizing refuelling outages together with the plant operators. This has been achieved without any further operating personnel having to be employed for this additional generating capacity. Using all of the greater resources afforded by the founding of Framatome ANP, work is continuing on finding ways to further improve nuclear power plant competitiveness. Some of the areas in which a nuclear vendor can directly contribute to this are presented. As a globally oriented leader of technology, the joint venture Framatome is in an optimum position to carry on providing plant operators with products and services which will make power generation from nuclear energy even more attractive in the future. (orig.)