1000TH WESTINGHOUSE FUEL ASSEMBLY DELIVERED TO SOUTH UKRAINE NPP

The 1000th RWFA fuel assembly for VVER-10000 fabricated by Westinghouse company (USA) will be delivered to South Ukraine NPP as part of the Reload Batch, as informed by the Swedish division of Westinghouse company, Westinghouse Electric Sweden AB (Vasteras, Kingdom of Sweden).
During his visit to Westinghouse Electric Sweden AB, First Vice-President – Technical Director of SE NNEGC Energoatom Oleksandr Shavlakov mentioned, that shipment of the 1000th fuel assembly fabricated by Westinghouse for a Ukrainian NPP is a milestone event in the longstanding cooperation between Energoatom and Westinghouse. “Nuclear power is playing the key role in Ukraine’s power sector providing more than half of all electricity produced in the country. The new Energy Strategy until 2035 adopted by the Government of Ukraine last year anchors the dominant role of nuclear power; provides for the long-term operation of the existing NPP power units; their power uprate and efficiency improvement; completion of Khmelnytskyi NPP power units and selection of reactor technologies for construction of new power units as a replacement of NPP capacitieso to be decommissioned starting 2030. Completion of these tasks is only possible and conditional on successful diversification of fresh nuclear fuel supply to Ukrainian NPPs, establishment of an efficient spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste management system, and introduction of state-of-the-art nuclear technologies. All this provides huge room for the current and future cooperation between Energoatom and Westinghouse”, Oleksandr Shavlakov emphasized.
Speaking at the celebration meeting on occasion of the 1000th fuel assembly shipped to Ukraine, where the parties also discussed the prospects of future cooperation between Energoatom and Westinghouse, the First Vice-president – Technical Director also reminded of the Amendment to the Contract with Westinghouse that had been signed earlier this year in January to further expand the scope and the “geography” of fresh nuclear fuel supply to Ukrainian NPPs. “We now use Westinghouse fuel at 6 power units of Ukrainian NPPs, and starting 2021 it will be loaded at 7 out of the 13 Ukrainian VVER-1000 reactors. The initial sites of South Ukraine and Zaporizhzhya NPPs will be complemented by Rivne NPP. There are also plans to deploy production of components – top and bottom nozzles for Westinghouse fuel assemblies – at production facilities of our separated subdivision “Atomenergomash”, Energoatom Technical Director added. (Source: Westinghouse)