South Ukraine-3 Westinghouse fuel loading set for April

A new batch of Westinghouse fuel will be loaded into unit 3 of the South Ukraine nuclear power plant in April, the chairman of Ukraine's State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate (SNRC) said in an interview with Ukrainian Independent Information Agency (UNIAN).

All of Ukraine's 15 nuclear units are Russian VVER pressurised water reactors traditionally supplied by Russian fuel manufacturer TVEL, a subsidiary of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom. The South Ukraine plant is located on the banks of Pivdennyi Buh river in the town of Yuzhnoukrayinsk, in the Mykolayiv region. Units 1 to 3 are 950 MWe VVER-1000 reactors that started commercial operations between 1983 and 1989.

But US-based Westinghouse, which is majority-owned by Japan's Toshiba, has been working in the Ukrainian market since 2003 and signed a fuel supply contract with the country's nuclear power plant operator Energoatom in 2008. Through that contract, Westinghouse supplied a total of 630 nuclear fuel assemblies to the three VVER-1000 PWRs at the South Ukraine nuclear power plant. In April 2014, this contract was amended, extending Westinghouse deliveries of fuel through to 2020. Then in December, Westinghouse and Energoatom announced they had agreed to "significantly increase" fuel deliveries to Ukrainian nuclear power plants.

Westinghouse said its fuel is operating safely and efficiently at South Ukraine-1 and -2 without any defects in performance.

Unit 3 is offline for scheduled and extensive modernization work, but SNRC chairman Serhiy Bozhko told UNIAN it would restart with Westinghouse fuel on 5 April. Maintenance work at the unit includes general reactor repair, technical inspections of two steam generators and maintenance of the low-pressure turbine.

"If we successfully pass the experimental operation period and there are no issues with the fuel, we will be able to easily expand fuel supplies to other nuclear power units," Bozhko said.

Under a US-Ukrainian initiative to reduce Ukraine's dependency on Russia for fuel, in 2005 six Westinghouse fuel assemblies were placed into the reactor core of unit 3 at the South Ukraine plant, together with Russian fuel, for a period of pilot operation. A reload batch of 42 fuel assemblies was provided by Westinghouse in mid-2009 for a three-year period of commercial operation at three units of the South Ukraine plant with regular monitoring and reporting. However, these trials were deemed unsuccessful, with Energoatom claiming manufacturing defects in the fuel led to a lengthy unscheduled outage at two of the units, while Westinghouse said that errors had been made during fuel loading.

Bozhko confirmed that the problem was connected with fuel loading and not the fuel itself.

Asked how it is possible to use nuclear fuel from two different suppliers, Bozhko said an "excellent example" of this is the Loviisa nuclear power plant in Finland. Westinghouse produced VVER-440 fuel at its Springfields facility in Preston, England for Fortum's Loviis plant and carried out seven reloads. Westinghouse is producing fuel for the South Ukraine plant at its fabrication facility in Västerås in Sweden.

"Using the fuel of different suppliers in a single reactor is standard practice," Bozhko said. "Competing suppliers are always interested in producing the highest quality fuel. Healthy competition can also reduce the price of the fuel, while fuel diversification helps a country improve its energy security," he said. This diversification of nuclear fuel for Ukrainian nuclear power plants is being carried out according to stringent national regulations that adhere to International Atomic Energy Agency safety standards, he said.

Asked about media hysteria surrounding an unplanned outage in November of unit 3 of the Zaporozhe nuclear power plant, which was caused by an electrical fault, Bozhko said a news agency had falsified an official Ukrainian regulatory document to imply that the radiation level at the plant was 16-18 times high than the permissible level of 120 mcR/h, when in fact it had not exceeded 12-15 mcR/h.

The "big flow of false news" led SNRC to start publishing more information than usual on its website. "We also use our website to continuously inform the public about radiation levels at all our nuclear power plants and surrounding areas," he said. The safety culture of the country's nuclear power plant workers is assured, he added. In addition, the physical defence of Ukraine's nuclear power plants has been enhanced since January 2014. "We are also ensuring that the plants are protected from possible terrorist attack and sabotage. We have also increased the anti-aircraft defences at certain plants," he said.

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News