Long-term Operations

Extending your nuclear plant’s lifespan brings immediate value.

Framatome delivers solutions for life extension projects backed by our unparalleled experience supporting long-term operations (LTO).

Framatome provides the following:

Over the past 65 years, we have provided support to more than 380 reactors worldwide. Our rich history is the basis for the expertise and institutional knowledge that brings value to our customers.

Video: Framatome is commited to support Long-term Operations

License renewal

Active in license renewals (LR) for nuclear plants since the early 1990s, Framatome has participated in 60% of LR applications in the U.S., performing regulatory-approved design basis and current-licensing basis validation and reconstitution projects for more than one third of U.S. nuclear power plants.

Framatome helped formulate the industry’s approach and methodology for license renewal, and the licensing analyses we create are used industry wide. We support licensing with tailored study programs, component certification, and qualification through testing, analysis and proven operational experience. Our upgrade programs also provide strong licensing justification for long-term operation.

Well-versed in current NRC expectations and industry standards, our teams are also familiar with most licensing, qualification and standards compliance requirements for safety authorities around the world. The insight and expertise produced by this unmatched licensing experience have proven invaluable to our clients.

Asset and aging management

Based on decades of field experience, Framatome’s proven, high-performance asset management and aging management solutions are utilized by more than 60 plants in 20 countries to ensure operation beyond design life.

LTO programs are based on strategic planning capabilities combined with in-depth nuclear engineering knowledge. Framatome provides an optimum scope of monitoring, inspection, periodic testing in combination with specific maintenance strategies and obsolescence management. For maintenance activities, outage or emergent works, Framatome ensures cost and schedule certainty, optimized safety and performance.

Whether it’s a detailed evaluation of aging effects or component replacement or repairs, we have the comprehensive portfolio you need for your LTO program.

Maintenance sur pompe primaire

Primary Pump Maintenance © Framatome

Modernization and Upgrades

Extending your reactor’s operating lifetime to reach long-term net-zero goals depends on increasing production levels while lowering production costs.

Framatome’s comprehensive and innovative modernization portfolio helps plants maximize their reactor performance and economics through proven upgrade solutions.

Framatome modernizes systems to enhance reliability and safety, ensuring consistent regulatory compliance — supporting digital transformation and addressing obsolescence. These solutions integrate seamlessly into existing systems and are applicable to all reactor designs. Framatome also performs safety analysis and qualification, supports regulatory interaction and updates documentation.

Expertise and capabilities

If you’re planning for LTO, you need people with expertise and vision on your side.

Framatome leverages our 65 years of experience, our expertise and our capabilities to address staffing challenges with knowledge management solutions and a comprehensive training portfolio, featuring tailored courses and academies that keep personnel, techniques, and designs up to date in the face of ever-changing regulatory and technological advances.

And we’re dedicated to continuous performance improvement, taking decades of lessons learned and integrating them into our work processes and planning.

Whether it’s engineering science and technologies for manufacturing, or operations training with simulators, we have the innovative programs to ensure your long-term skills.

Long-term challenges

Anticipating LTO challenges, Framatome delivers the tools needed to help you achieve your net-zero goals, providing solutions for waste management, climate change impacts, long-term fuel supply, spent fuel storage capacities, cybersecurity and more.

These solutions are designed not only to ensure continued performance but also to uphold required levels of safety, regulatory compliance, and operational certainty.

Whether we are raising the standard for nuclear fuel to increase operational time and energy output or designing advanced solutions for your unique waste management needs, we’re committed to delivering the game-changing technology you need with the performance you expect.

122
Steam generators replaced

Over 400
systems monitoring
more than 8,000 assets worldwide

60%
of US license renewal
applications involved Framatome

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