Ukraine's Energoatom signs contract with Westinghouse to deliver new reactor for AP1000 unit of Khmelnitsky NPP
MOSCOW. Dec 18 (Interfax) - Ukrainian Energoatom and American Westinghouse have signed an agreement on the purchase of a reactor plant for the first nuclear power unit in Ukraine using AP1000 technology.
"On December 17, 2023, in the presence of Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Galushchenko, President of the State Enterprise NNEGC Energoatom Petr Kotin and the CEO of the Westinghouse Electric Company Patrick Fragman signed an agreement on the purchase of equipment for power unit No. 5 of the Khmelnytsky NPP. It will be built using American AP1000 technology," Ukrainian media reported citing a statement from the company.
The unit has already been manufactured and is currently in the United States, Galushchenko said. Construction work at the Khmelnitsky NPP site will begin once the Verkhovna Rada adopts the required legislation.
"We are on a fairly coordinated schedule. We are now completing work on a feasibility study, and then the corresponding law should be adopted [on the construction of power units 5 and 6 of the Khmelnitsky NPP]," the minister said, adding that financing will be done with Energoatom's own funds and a loan from U.S. Exim Bank; the cost to build one AP1000 block is estimated at about $5 billion.
In turn, Kotin noted that once the law is adopted, the company will be ready to begin construction work as soon as possible; the unit will add 1.1 GW of installed electrical capacity to the country's energy system.
He also emphasized that the new American equipment is of great importance to the Ukrainian energy system, since the actual capacity of AP1000 units is 1,100 MW, while now the most powerful nuclear units in Ukraine have 1,000 MW of capacity.
"With the signed contract, we have completed the purchase of equipment for one unit; that is, we guarantee that we are buying this equipment and that it will be installed here," the head of Energoatom said.
As reported, in the fall of 2021, Energoatom and Westinghouse signed a memorandum on the construction of five nuclear power units in Ukraine, and in the summer of 2022, an agreement to increase the number of nuclear units using AP1000 technology to nine and to create a Westinghouse engineering and technical center in the country. A contract was also signed for the development of an updated feasibility study for the construction of two AP1000 units at the Khmelnitsky NPP site.
After the abandonment of Russian nuclear fuel, Westinghouse became the only supplier of fuel assemblies for Ukrainian nuclear power plants.