Ukrainian nuclear plants ready to switch to Westinghouse fuel

MOSCOW. Dec 28 (Interfax) - The operator of Ukraine's nuclear power plants (NPP), Energoatom has finished preparations to completely switch reactors to nuclear fuel from U.S. company Westinghouse, Ukrainian media reported, citing a statement from Energoatom.

Ukraine accelerated the process of transitioning all NPP reactors to U.S. fuel in February 2022 and all the necessary work has now been essentially completed, Energoatom president Petr Kotin said in the press release.

Energoatom carried out engineering work to convert all generating units with VVER-1000 and VVER-440 reactors to U.S. fuel. It also purchased software to monitor all active zones of reactors, trained its employees and purchased the necessary equipment for transportation and installation operations, including a tug for unloading nuclear fuel, and fuel assembly simulators.

The delivery of a simulator to a Ukrainian NPP needed to confirm the compatibility of TVS-WR fuel assemblies was the final stage of the lengthy preparation process, the company said.

A division of Energoatom is now developing prototype elements and components of fuel assemblies needed to work with nuclear fuel in the active zones of reactors at Ukrainian NPP.

The first batch of nuclear fuel made by Westinghouse Electric Sweden AB with the participation of Energoatom experts was loaded into a VVER-440 reactor at the Rovno NPP in September.

Westinghouse became Ukraine's only supplier of fuel assemblies after the country stopped using Russian nuclear fuel.

Energoatom operates the Rovno NPP with four generating units with combined capacity of 2.835 GW, the Khmelnitsky NPP with two units totaling 2 GW and the South Ukraine NPP with three 1 GW units.