Ukraine Forges Ahead with Nuclear Power Ambitions

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--Ukraine's state-owned nuclear power company Energoatom is pushing ahead with its nuclear power ambitions despite the ongoing war with Russia.

At the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Italy, the company signed a deal with Westinghouse Electric Company (Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania) to partner on developing final fuel assembly capability in Ukraine. It has also signed a deal with Holtec International (Jupiter, Florida) outlining current areas of cooperation as well as the intention to create a plant in Ukraine for the production of components for Holtec's small modular reactors (SMRs) and an agreement for Holtec technology to be used by Energoatom for manufacturing containers for storing used nuclear fuel. The deals are the latest in a series of moves by Ukraine to become more energy independent and cut the country's reliance on Russian imports.

Westinghouse, which already has strong ties to Ukraine's nuclear industry, said the deal will enable the deployment of full-scale fabrication facilities in Ukraine for the manufacture of nuclear fuel components compatible with Westinghouse technologies. Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the country has replaced Russian fuel supplies for its Soviet-era VVER-440 and VVER-1000 reactors with fuel supplied by Westinghouse from its manufacturing operations in Sweden. The deal to create a domestic final fuel assembly for Ukraine was preceded earlier this year when Westinghouse approved Energoatom subsidiary AtomEnergoMash as a qualified supplier for the manufacturing of top and bottom nozzles for Westinghouse's VVER-1000 fuel assemblies.

"This agreement is another strategic step towards Ukraine's energy independence," said Ukraine's Minister of Energy, German Galushchenko. "The development of domestic fabrication of fuel assemblies based on Westinghouse technology not only increases the reliability of nuclear fuel supply, but also eliminates dependence on Russian fuel chains once and for all. Through this cooperation, we are strengthening the energy security of Ukraine and the entire Europe and building a future with firm integration of Ukrainian nuclear power into the Western market."

Energoatom and Westinghouse agreed in 2022 to build nine AP1000 reactors in Ukraine. In 2023, the government pushed ahead with permitting construction of power units 3 and 4 at the Khmelnytsky nuclear power plant. Ukraine has nine operating reactors at the Khmelnitsky, South Ukraine, and Rivne nuclear power plants with a further six at the largest plant, Zaporizhzhia, which has been under Russian military control since March 2022. Industrial Info is tracking five projects at the Khmelnytsky plant worth more than US$21 billion. Subscribers to Industrial Info's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) Project Database can click here for the reports.

With Holtec, Energoatom is building on a series of previous relationships related to the company's SMR technology and the creation of Ukraine's centralised fuel storage facility located in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, which was commissioned in late 2023. It is a dry storage site for used VVER-1000 and VVER-440 nuclear fuel assemblies and according to Energoatom it is saving the country US$200 million a year by no longer having to have used fuel transported and stored in Russia.

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