Designed to enhance safety in the area of severe accident management, the system was required by the Slovenian Nuclear Safety Administration (SNSA) following the March 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station accident in Japan.
Comprising five aerosol filters inside containment, an iodine filter inside the auxiliary building and various auxiliary components, the system reduces the amount of radioactive materials that could be released if a Fukushima-type of accident were to occur, reducing its impact on the surrounding communities.
The system has been installed in 15 months as part of a contract awarded in 2012.
Westinghouse Southern Europe vice president and managing director Javier González said the company is currently under contract for seven such units worldwide as the customers recognize the cost and technology advantage of dry-filtered method of containment venting.
"Since the design is modular, lead times can be much less than for other systems that require the construction of additional buildings," González added.
Factory acceptance tests performed on the installed filters positively surpassed levels required by regulatory authorities and by Krško.
The installation was started during normal operation of the plant for the components located inside auxiliary building, while installation of the equipment inside the reactor building also had no impact on the outage’s critical path.
