[en] Utilities operating LWRs require fuel assemblies and in-core fuel management service, which ensure safe, flexible and cost-effective production of electricity. With the reliability of the fuel having been always the most important requirement, advanced measures to minimize fuel cycle costs are receiving increasing attention in the light of the pressure on costs within the de-regulated power generation markets. The role of in-core fuel management in supporting the goal to minimize fuel cycle costs consists in the development of more demanding core loading strategies, i.e. in the first place more advanced low leakage loading patterns. A prerequisite for this type of loading pattern is the use of an optimized burnable absorber design. Gadolinia as integrated burnable absorber is a very effective means for limiting the critical boron concentration and power peaking factors. Siemens has accumulated extensive experience with Gd-fuel for almost 20 years with e.g. more than 5500 Gd-FA's delivered for PWRs and irradiated up to 65 MWd/kg_HM. Current development efforts for optimizing Gd-fuel are focused on the reduction of the inherent penalties of today's Gd-Fa designs, i.e. reduced average FA enrichment and heavy metal content as well as residual reactivity binding. The most effective way to overcome these drawbacks is the reduction of the Gd₂O₃ concentration to values of approximately 2 w/o, for which according to recent measurements of the heat conductivity of modern Gd-fuels the reduction of the fissile content in the Gd-rods is no longer necessary. Various feasibility studies have been performed to evaluate the consequences of low-Gd designs for both Siemens PWRs and Non-Siemens PWRs, for which more restrictive boundary conditions with respect to critical boron concentration and peaking factors have to be fulfilled. These studies as well as the first realization of an extended reactor cycle using a low Gd-Fa reload design confirm that the in-core fuel management can handle the different Gd burnout characteristics without problems. The economical benefits of low-Gd designs compared to conventional Gd designs are comparable to those achievable by distinctly more costly and complex alternatives like the use of enriched Gadolinia. (authors)