Bulgarian NPP to refuse Russian nuclear fuel in favour of American for the first time
The country will completely abandon Russian nuclear fuel in 2029
The management of Bulgaria's Kozloduy NPP will carry out the first refuelling with US nuclear fuel in May this year.
Source. This was announced by the director of the nuclear power plant Valentin Nikolov, 24chasa.bg reports.
It is about Westinghouse products. It replaced the fuel of the Rosatom – TVEL.
The fifth power unit will be refuelled. To do this, it will be shut down for annual scheduled maintenance. According to Nikolov, the plant has provided the national Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NRA) with all the necessary information about the US fuel cassettes.
Westinghouse products are to be licensed by the end of March. After that, the Russian cassettes will be gradually replaced by American ones over four fuel cycles. Each VVER-1000 reactor contains 163 cassettes. Every year, 42 of them are removed during scheduled maintenance.
Previously, Kozloduy NPP used exclusively Russian fuel. The last time the fifth power unit was refuelled was last spring. In total, two reactors operate at the facility. Framatome, a subsidiary of the French energy giant EDF, will supply fuel for the sixth power unit. The first batch of cassettes will be shipped to Bulgaria in 2026. The country will completely abandon Russian nuclear fuel in 2029.
"Kozloduy is the only nuclear power plant in Bulgaria. It provides more than a third of the country's electricity and is a major exporter to other Balkan countries. The authorities decided to refuse nuclear fuel from Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.
Bulgaria is not the first country to make this decision. The Czech Republic also intends to switch to US nuclear fuel. The Dukovany NPP will start using Westinghouse products in autumn this year, and the Temelín NPP will start using them in a few months.
In addition, Finnish Fortum, which owns the Loviisa NPP, is trying to reduce its dependence on Russia. The contracts with TVEL are valid until 2027 for the first power unit and until 2030 for the second. Fortum also signed an agreement with Westinghouse earlier, but the introduction of a new type of fuel requires time and approvals.
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