Westinghouse Electric Company said Tuesday that, together with its eight European consortium partners, it had reached a milestone with the approval of the conceptual design for fuel for the VVER-440 assemblies, which is an enhanced version of a previous Westinghouse fuel product that was delivered to the Loviisa Nuclear Power Plant in Finland from 2001 to 2007.
The company also said it had been recognized by the Ukraine Business Council for its "strong commitment to the economic and democratic development of Ukraine" with an award presented at the Ukraine Gala, hosted by the American Center for a European Ukraine.
Westinghouse vice president Northern and Eastern Europe Aziz Dag called the VVER-440 fuel project an "important initiative."
"We are fueling Europe's energy security by providing fuel to Russian-designed VVER-440 reactors," Dag said.
The next move for the fuel is regulatory in nature. It includes "completion of the associated methods and methodology to be applied to the licensing and use of the new fuel design in each of the European countries," Westinghouse said, noting, "all key activities are on time." The program is expected to be completed by October of this year.
Westinghouse has taken a lead role in the European Supply of Safe Nuclear Fuel (ESSANUF) project since September 2015. Its partners include VUJE, UJV Rez, Lapbeenranta University of Technology, National Nuclear Laboratory, NucleoCon, National Science Center Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology, The Joint Research Center of the European Commission in Karlsruhe and the Enusa Industrias Avanzadas.
The program is funded by the European Union’s (EU’s) Euratom Research and Training Programme (2014-2018) which forms part of Horizon 2020 (H2020), the EU’s Research and Innovation program.