Ukrainian regulator approves US fuel use
11 August 2011
The Ukrainian nuclear regulator has given its approval for national electricity generator EnergoAtom to load Westinghouse-produced fuel into its Russian-designed VVER-1000 reactor at unit 2 of the South Ukraine nuclear power plant. However, the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate has requested that EnergoAtom conduct further studies on the use of fuel supplied by Westinghouse and Russia's TVEL simultaneously. In addition, the company must develop a program to check the Kruiz in-core monitoring system when a combination of Westinghouse and TVEL fuel is used. Furthermore, EnergoAtom must introduce a program to monitor the impact of fast neutrons on the reactor pressure vessel. Ukraine has 15 nuclear power reactors - all the units are Russian VVER types - at four plants (Khmelnitsky, Rovno, South Ukraine and Zaporozhe). In common with other VVER reactors, all of Ukraine's are routinely supplied with fuel by TVEL, although trials of Westinghouse fuel assemblies have been conducted over the past few years at unit 3 of the South Ukraine plant.