There are now 163 Westinghouse fuel assemblies in the reactor core of the VVER 1000/V320 pressurised water reactor in southeast Ukraine, a statement said.
According to Energoatom, Units 1, 3, and 4 at Zaporozhye operate on a combination of fuel assemblies supplied by Russia’s Tvel and Westinghouse.
Energoatom said Zaporozhye-1, which is shut down for a planned outage, has 126 Westinghouse fuel assemblies loaded in its reactor core, while Zaporozhye-3 and -4 have 84 Westinghouse assemblies each.
The company said the units are expected to switch fully to Westinghouse-made fuel in 2020 and 2021.
In 2018, South Ukraine-3 became the first Ukrainian VVER 1000 unit to use only Westinghouse-supplied fuel assemblies. Zaporozhye-5 is now the second Ukrainian unit to entirely switch its fuel supply.
Ukraine previously sourced much of its fuel from Russia, but in 2014 signed fuel contracts with Westinghouse as part of a long-term effort with the US to reduce fuel dependency on Russia.
In January 2018, Westinghouse extended the agreement with Ukraine pledging nuclear fuel deliveries to seven of Ukraine’s 15 nuclear units between 2021 and 2025, expanding a contract for six reactors that was set to expire in 2020.
Westinghouse manufactures fuel assemblies of the ТВС-WR design for use in VVER 1000 PWRs at its fuel fabrication facility in Västerås, Sweden.
