2024-02-20 21:01:52
A parliamentary delegation will visit their factory in Sweden to make sure everything is on schedule
Unit 5 of the Kozloduy NPP will be shut down for scheduled annual maintenance and for the first refueling with Westinghouse nuclear fuel in May. This was said by the head of the nuclear power plant, Valentin Nikolov.
There is no danger of a block stopping due to lack of fuel. Everything is going according to schedule, even a parliamentary delegation is expected to visit the nuclear fuel plant of “Westinghouse Electric” in Sweden, so that the people’s representatives can make sure on the spot that everything is on time, said Nikolov.
He also specified that everything that the regulator – the Nuclear Regulatory Agency – requested from the nuclear power plant for the American cartridges was provided. She had consultants doing analyses. We expect the fuel to receive a license by the end of March, Nikolov said.
The Unit V reactor was last refueled with Russian fuel last May for its 29th fuel campaign.
As “24 Chasa” wrote, in one VVER 1000 reactor, as they are in V and VI units, there are 163 cassettes. Every year, during the planned repair of this type of reactors, between 42 and 48 cartridges are removed, at Kozloduy NPP there are 42.
The removed fuel is called spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and is initially stored in the cartridge aging pool.
If the Nuclear Regulatory Agency approves the Westinghouse fuel, the Russian cartridges will be phased out with American ones over 4 fuel cycles.
On two consecutive days, during the tenure of the minister Rosen Hristov, contracts were signed with Westinghouse – to supply fuel for block V and with the French company Framatom – for cartridges for block VI.
For Block VI, there is Russian fuel until 2029, said the head of “Kozloduy” Valentin Nikolov. “We expect Framatom to start production before 2025 and deliver the first refill cartridges in 2026,” he explained.