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23 September 2024

Ukraine Eyes American Technology as Cornerstone of Future Energy Mix

Mateusz Kubiak

On August 27, Ukraine’s Energoatom, the sole operator of the country’s nuclear power plants, announced that it secured the first approvals from local officials for the future development of a new nuclear project at the formerly abandoned site of the Chyhyryn Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) (Energoatom.com.ua, August 27). The company intends to build four nuclear reactors at the site based on the Westinghouse-owned AP1000 pressurized water reactor technology as a part of its wider program to deploy a whole fleet of new nuclear units across the country. Undoubtedly, Energoatom’s plans are well grounded—both in the context of earlier signed cooperation agreements with Westinghouse and in the light of the need to rebuild Ukraine’s energy system due to the impact of Russia’s war. Nevertheless, even if Ukraine would like to commence work on the new nuclear units as quickly as possible, actual construction is unlikely to start before the end of the war without adequate systems to defend against Russian missiles and drones as well as increased support from Kyiv’s Western partners.

Energoatom already entered into cooperation with Westinghouse as early as 2021. At the time, the two companies confirmed the choice of the AP1000 technology for future nuclear reactor projects in Ukraine (Info.westinghouse.com, August 31, 2021). The two sides signed a contract initiating engineering and procurement of long-lead items (i.e., specific equipment that takes several years to procure, design, fabricate, and deliver) for the first AP1000 unit at the Khmelnytskyi NPP in November 2021 (Info.westinghouse.com, November 22, 2021). 

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