Following completion of a two-year licensing programme, the Czech State Office for Nuclear Safety announced it has approved a new type of Russian nuclear fuel for use at three of the four VVER reactors at Dukovany. The fuel will be loaded into units 1 and 2 this year, and unit 4 in 2004.
The fuel, which has been developed and manufactured by Russian fuel manufacturer TVEL, has an increased content of U-235 in the fuel assemblies, which each contain six fuel rods with burnable absorbers.
A spokesman at Dukovany said that the new fuel “facilitates higher burn-up, increases the time that one fuel assembly is able to spend in the reactor core from four to five years, and will bring considerable economic benefits.”
