Westinghouse Electric Company and Ukrainian nuclear utility Energoatom announced on 19 July that unit 3 of the South Ukraine nuclear plant had been loaded with a full core of Westinghouse VVER-1000 fuel, becoming the first VVER-1000 reactor in Ukraine operate without any fuel assemblies supplied by Russia. 

Energoatom launched a project for the qualification of Westinghouse fuel in 2000, and in 2008 Energoatom and Westinghouse Electric Sweden signed a contract to ship fuel to three or six Ukrainian reactors between 2011 and 2015.  However, during trial use at South Ukraine in 2012, some fuel became deformed and Ukraine later suspended use of the Westinghouse fuel pending its redesign. Following Ukraine's change of government in 2014, the contract was revived and extended. Westinghouse, which declared bankruptcy last year, was formerly a subsidiary of Japan’s Toshiba but has now been acquired by Canada-based Brookfield.

Ukraine has previously received most of its nuclear services and nuclear fuel from Russia, but since the change of government in 2014 it has been reducing this dependence by buying more fuel from Westinghouse. Ukraine’s 15 nuclear units, operated by state-owned nuclear utility Energoatom, comprise 13 VVER-1000s and two VVER-440s with a total capacity of 13,835MWe.  

Aziz Dag, vice president and managing director for Northern Europe at Westinghouse said: "We are proud to continue supporting Ukraine with their energy diversification by supplying a full core of Westinghouse VVER-1000 fuel to our customer, Energoatom." 
Michele DeWitt, senior vice president for nuclear fuel at Westinghouse, noted that Westinghouse has made "significant investments over the last several years" in order to further enhance fuel delivery to Energoatom. "We have dedicated production lines for VVER-1000 fuel and stand ready to supply fuel for further contract expansions," he said.

In a separate statement, Energoatom confirmed that 163 of Westinghouse's TVS-WR fuel assemblies had been loaded into South Ukraine 3 following completion of scheduled maintenance work on the reactor. There were no problems with the loading and on 18 July the unit was brought to full capacity, it said. 

The full loading of the unit with Westinghouse fuel will enable Energoatom to complete the licensing process within a year and switch the reactor from pilot to industrial operation, according to Energoatom President and CEO Yury Nedashkovsky. "This event was preceded by the complex long-term work of Ukrainian, American and Swedish specialists,” he noted.

Attending the ceremony on 18 July  were representatives of the US Embassy in Ukraine, the US Department of Energy, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory of the USA, the Ministry of Energy and the Coal Industry of Ukraine, the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine, the State Scientific Technical Centre on Nuclear and Radiation Safety, and Ukrainian members of parliament.

Vladimir Lisnichenko, general director of South Ukraine NPP said: “Moving from the pilot project to the commercial supply of nuclear fuel from an alternative supplier, Energoatom signed a contract with Westinghouse Electric Sweden for the supply of TVS-W assemblies for three domestic power units every year for four years." He added: "It was decided that South Ukraine 2 and 3 and unit 5 of the Zaporozhe NPP would operate with alternative fuel." 

Further expansion of the contract to include another three units resulted in Westinghouse fuel being loaded last year into Zaporozhe 1, 3 and 4. 

Westinghouse fuel assemblies are now operating in the active zones of six of Ukraine’s 15 reactors. From 2021, this will increase to seven.  South Ukraine 3 began commercial operation in 1987. Energoatom is preparing to extend its operating lifetime 10 years to 40 years. 

Ukraine purchased nuclear fuel worth $213.511m in January-May 2018, which was 21.7% more than for the same period in 2017 ($175.490m). This included Russian nuclear fuel worth $138.645m (64.9%) and Westinghouse fuel worth $74.867m (35.1%), according to the State Statistics Service of Ukraine. 

Photo: South Ukraine 3 now operating with a full core of Westinghouse VVER-1000 fuel (Credit: Energoatom)