26 January 2024, Friday, 11:20 308

Ukraine will start construction of 4 new nuclear reactors in 2024

Editor: Roman Vaniyan

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Ukraine will begin construction of four new nuclear reactors in the summer or fall of 2024 as the country seeks to compensate for the loss of energy capacity due to the war with russia.

This follows from a statement by Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko in an interview with Reuters, the Ukrainian News agency reports.

Two of the units, which include reactors and related equipment, will be based on russian equipment that Ukraine wants to import from Bulgaria. At the same time, the other two will use Western technology from power equipment maker Westinghouse.

All four reactors will be built at the Khmelnytskyi nuclear power plant.

"With the 3^rd and 4^th units at the Khmelnytskyi NPP, we want to compensate for Zaporizhzhia, and we are currently negotiating with our Bulgarian partners about the two reactors that we want to take away. If we received the reactor bodies today, I believe that 2.5 years, and we would have a third reactor on the line," Halushchenko said.

In parallel with the construction of the Soviet-era VVER-1000 units, Ukraine wants to start preparatory construction work for the placement of two modern AP-1000 western units, also at the Khmelnytskyi NPP.

"We need to pass (parliamentary) legislation, and we have bills for the 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th, and 6^th power units. These are VVER-1000 and the 5th and 6th; we want to build them of the AP type. This is a parallel process," he said.

As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, in December 2023, the national nuclear power generating company Energoatom and the Westinghouse company (United States) signed an agreement on the purchase of equipment for Power Unit 5 of the Khmelnytskyi nuclear power plant (Khmelnytskyi NPP, Netishyn, Khmelnytskyi Region), which will be built using the American AR1000 technology.