Contract with Westinghouse to buy Ukrainian nuclear power plant reactor cost $437.5 mln - Energoatom

MOSCOW. Dec 27 (Interfax) - The contract between Ukraine's Energoatom and Westinghouse Electric Company for the purchase of a reactor unit for Ukraine's first nuclear power unit using AP1000 technology cost $437.5 million, Ukrainian media reported quoting information that Energoatom published in the electronic Prozorro procurement system.

Energoatom chief Petr Kotin and Westinghouse CEO Patrick Fragman signed an agreement on December 17 to deliver a new reactor for what will be Ukraine's first AP1000 unit at the Khmelnitsky NPP.

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. Once the law is adopted, the company will be ready to begin construction as soon as possible; the unit will add 1.1 GW of installed electrical capacity to the country's energy system. This reactor could be launched at Khmelnitsky Nuclear Power Plant in 2028-2029. The Khmelnitsky NPP currently operates two units with combined capacity of 2 GW.

Energoatom and Westinghouse signed a memorandum in the fall of 2021 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.