Zaporozhe nuclear power plant output passes 1 trillion kWh mark

Monday, 30 March 2015

Ukraine's Zaporozhe nuclear power plant, Europe's biggest, has become the world's first thermal and nuclear power plant to produce more than one trillion kilowatt hours of electricity.

Six-unit Zaporozhe – all Russia-designed V-320 pressurized water reactors - has a net capacity of 5718 MWe. The second largest nuclear power plant in operation is Gravelines, near Dunkerque in France, with a net capacity of 5460 MWe.

Ukraine's nuclear power plant operator, state-run Energoatom, said the achievement meant the avoidance of 700 million tonnes of coal - $1.4 trillion at current market prices – and nearly 350 billion cubic meters of natural gas - $105 billion if bought from Russia today – if fossil fuels rather than nuclear power had been used to generate the same amount of electricity. That amount of electricity would supply the Zaporozhe region for 122 years and the whole of Ukraine for almost seven years, Energoatom added.

It also equates to more than $300 billion in the value of electricity as current prices for the population of Ukraine, or nearly 65% of the country's budget for 2015.

The first unit of the Zaporozhe plant was connected to the national grid in December 1984. The second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth units were commissioned in 1985, 1986, 1987, 1989 and 1995.

The plant - which employs more than 11,000 people and supplies power to more than nine million people in Ukraine - is "very close to a new stage of development", Energoatom said, namely planned operating life extensions. The operating licence of unit 1 will expire in December this year, while that of unit 2 expires in February 2016.

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News