South Carolina Electric and Gas (SCE&G), a subsidiary of the US Scana Corporation has awarded Areva a contract to fabricate and install the integrated head assembly at unit 1 of the VC Summer nuclear plant in South Carolina.

Areva said the assembly is scheduled to be installed during a planned outage in 2017 and is being customised specifically for the 971MWe Summer 1 pressurised water reactor. The device replaces the existing components above the reactor vessel closure head and enables the entire component to be removed during refuelling in far fewer steps than the current configuration.

The integrated head assembly will increase the safety and efficiency of outage operations. Areva has installed 10 such assemblies in the USA, most recently at Ameren Missouri's single-unit Callaway nuclear station in Missouri.

Last month, SCE&G updated its construction schedule for units 2&3 at the VC Summer plant site - both Westinghouse AP1000 reactors. SCE&G co-owns VC Summer with Santee Cooper.

The reactor vessel for Summer 3 arrived on site from the Port of Charleston in July. SCE&G also confirmed the placement of the CA04 module (reactor vessel cavity). The company also said progress is continuing on construction of Summer 2, where first concrete was poured in March 2013.