Overview

Wet-steam turbines for nuclear power plants are currently designed and produced by only a few manufacturers worldwide. Several former independent producers of nuclear turbines, including the British manufacturer GEC, which was formed from the merger of AEI and English Electric, French manufacturers Rateau, Alsacienne de Construction Mecanique (SACM), and Campaignie Electromecanique (CEM), and the German firm MAN all merged to form GEC Alsthom. In turn, GEC Alsthom merged with ABB Kraftwerke AG, which had been formed from the merger of German-Swiss firms Brown Boveri and Escher-Wiss and Swedish manu facturer Stal-Laval, creating the international giant ABB-ALSTOM, presently named merely ALSTOM. In another spate of conglomeration, German firm Kraftwerke Union AG (Siemens/KWU) absorbed the British company NEI Parsons and the German AEG and then merged with Westing house to create another huge international concern, Siemens Power Generation (Siemens PG), which includes the U.S. subsidiary Siemens Westing house Power Corporation (SWPC).

Among other contemporary producers of wet-steam turbines for nuclear power plants are General Electric in the United States; a trio of Japanese manufacturers Hitachi, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), and Toshiba; Turboatom (also known as Kharkov Turbine Works, or KhTGZ) in Ukraine; Leningrad Metallic Works (LMZ) in Russia, and koda Energo (Skoda) in the Czech Republic. Combined, these companies have provided almost all of the steam turbines for every nuclear power plant in the world. In addition to the companies mentioned, Ansaldo Energia manufactured six turbines for Italian nuclear power plants with a total capacity of 3,530 MW; and Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd.