Areva

Areva is a French multinational group specializing in nuclear power and renewable energy headquartered in Paris La Défense. Areva has developed the EPR, an advanced pressurized water nuclear reactor, which has proved to be a troubled reactor design with expensive problems. Nuclear sales declined for Areva after the 2011 Japanese Fukushima disaster, and Areva had a 4.8 billion euros loss in 2014 on sales of 8.3 billion euros. Areva is majority owned by the French state.

The corporate name "Areva" is inspired by the Trappist Santa María la Real monastery in Arévalo in Spain.

History

1958-2001

Areva has its roots in Framatome, which was founded in 1958 by several companies of the French industrial giant The Schneider Group along with Empain, Merlin Gérin, and the American Westinghouse, in order to license Westinghouse's pressurized water reactor (PWR) technology and develop a bid for Chooz A (in France). Called Franco-Américaine de Constructions Atomiques (Framatome), the original company consisted of four engineers, one from each of the parent companies. The original mission of the company was to act as a nuclear engineering firm and to develop a nuclear power plant that was to be identical to Westinghouse's existing product specifications. The first European plant of Westinghouse design was by then already under construction in Italy.