- In Three Year Delay Poland Pushes Nuclear Power to 2036
- France, US, and Canada Support Financing Polish Nuclear Power Plants
- Norway Companies To Evaluate SMRs
- Last Energy’s South Wales UK Nuclear Project Gets US Export Nod
- DOE Selects Six Firms to Supply Enriched Uranium
In Three Year Delay Poland Pushes Nuclear Power to 2036
- Commercial operation for the first Westinghouse 1,150 MW AP1000 reactor is now planned for 2036 with an ambitious plan for completing the the 2nd and 3rd reactors expected to in 2037 and 2038. A more realistic schedule would be finishing #2 in 2039 and #3 in 2042.
- The revised timeframe for #1 means a three-year delay to previous government plans for the first reactor to be commissioned in 2033.
- The government says the reason for pushing back the schedule is that it is not ready to manage the financing, construction, operation, and regulation of three 1,150 Westinghouse AP1000s PWRs.
(NucNet) Poland’s first commercial nuclear power plant is now scheduled for commercial operation in 2036 with first concrete scheduled in 2028. The new timeline comes as a result of an unanticipated update of the country’s nuclear power program.
The changes were announced by Wojciech Wrochna, Undersecretary Of State For Strategic Energy Infrastructure. Previously, he was VP for Management at ORLEN Synthos Green Energy. That firm is now planning to build BWRX300 SMRs for its chemical plants supplied by GE-Hitachi (YouTube video)
The delay is caused by a combination of the government not being ready to manage a project of this size and complexity. Also, financial commitments to build the plants are still a work in progress with major negotiations for EU financing yet to be initiated by the Polish government.
Letters of intent received from the US, France, and Canada are the front end steps in a process to close on cash commitments. Approvals are based on due diligence reviews that will include assessments of the government’s capabilities to manage completion of the massive project safely, on time, and within budget. These reviews will also look at home much funding the government is putting in itself as well as rate structures that will insure the operation of the reactors remains in the black.
The problem for Poland is that these offers of financing will have to be adjusted to take into account the increased construction costs associated with the just announced three year delay in breaking ground and completing the reactors.
In November 2022, Warsaw chose US-based Westinghouse to supply the its AP1000 pressurized water reactor technology for the construction of the three units near the villages of Lubiatowo and Kopalino, to the northwest of Gdansk on the Baltic coast in the province of Pomerania. [map]
Poland has been working on an update of its nuclear power program last released in 2020. That program contained plans for deploying between 6 GW and 9 GW of commercial nuclear power at up to two sites in the 2030s and early 2040s.
Unrealistic Expectations
Maciej Lipka, a nuclear energy expert at Warsaw-based consultancy Nuclear PL, told NucNet that the 2033 target, announced in 2020 as the in-service date for Poland’s first reactor, was “quite unrealistic from the outset and wishful in nature.”
He said prior efforts did not take into account the real scope of the administrative burden associated with the permitting and approval processes as well as project management.
“It t seems we are witnessing a fresh start with the government genuinely taking care of this strategic project.”
In 2023, Westinghouse and US-partner Bechtel jointly formed a consortium that will implement the project with Bechtel as the EPC and Westinghouse as the vendor.
Plans for a Second Site Up in the Air
Poland has not chosen a second nuclear power station site, although several options in central Poland have been mentioned. A technology vendor has not been chosen, but there is interest from Westinghouse, France’s EDF and South Korea’s Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power.
According to Wrochna, the “selection of a partner” for a second nuclear power station “must happen” through a competitive process. A second site is to be selected in 2025. Westinghouse and South Korea have an unresolved dispute over intellectual property rights for the APR1000, which is the EU version of South Korea’s APR1400 PWR. South Korea won the bid for the Czech Republic’s Dukovany site and a Czech government review of the Westinghouse claims intended to overturn that decision was rejected by the government.
Europe To Begin State Aid Procedure
Wrochn added that Warsaw expects the European Commission to start a state aid approval procedure by the end of 2024 for the proposed financing plan for Poland’s first station. Warsaw reportedly sent an official letter in September 2024 to the commission to kick off the state aid approval procedure required under the European Union’s rigid competition rules.
The government has unveiled plans to inject over €14 billion ($15.5 billion) in equity funding into state-owned Polskie Elektrownie Jadrowe, the company charged with developing the first power station, between 2025 and 2030. External debt funding for the project – reported to be costing between €20 billion and €35 billion in total – will also be sought under the government’s plans.
In addition to equity and debt financing, the financing model foreseen by Warsaw includes a contract for difference scheme during the operational phase of the project with the government guaranteeing a minimum power purchase price, known as a “strike price.”
Poland is running late with this process.
“The most time and effort consuming task now will be negotiating state aid with the European Commission, which, as it turns out, has not been done so far,” Lipka said.
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France, US, and Canada Support Financing Polish Nuclear Power Plants
(WNN) France’s Bpifrance Assurance Export and Sfil have joined the growing list of overseas financial institutions expressing interest in helping to finance Poland’s first nuclear power plant project.
Export credit agency Bpifrance Assurance Export and public development bank Sfil have submitted letters of intent to Polskie Elektrownie Jadrowe (PEJ) regarding financing of the Pomeranian power plant for the equivalent of more than $3.75 billion. Poland will need seven or eight times that amount to build all three of its planned AP1000 reactors.
“The letters of intent from two French institutions are yet more proof of the growing interest in Polish nuclear investment,” said PEJ Vice-President Piotr Piela.
The announcement came just days after PEJ received a letter of intent from Export Development Canada, for up to $1.45 billion to potentially support the project.
Last month, the US International Development Finance Corporation – the USA’s development bank – signed a letter of interest with PEJ to provide more than $980 million in financing for Poland’s first nuclear power plant. A similar declaration, for the equivalent of about $17.243 billion, was made last April by the US Export-Import Bank.
All of these preliminary notices will be followed by detailed negotiations, and eventually term sheets, which if approved by the lending agencies, will turn into actual financial resources to build the reactors.
In September, the Polish government announced its intention to allocate $14.787 billion to fund the country’s first nuclear power plant. However, like the letters of intent for funding from the US, France, and Canada, it’s a long road to cash commitments even by the host government.
“Close cooperation with foreign credit entities is an important element of PEJ’s strategy, which ensures financing of the company’s investments and assumes building relationships with suppliers from countries with an extensive supply chain in the nuclear industry,” PEJ said. “The aim is to maximize the share of export credit agencies in the project’s debt financing structure.”
An agreement setting a plan for the delivery of the plant was signed in May last year by Westinghouse, Bechtel and PEJ – a special-purpose vehicle 100% owned by Poland’s State Treasury.
Under an engineering services agreement signed in September last year, in cooperation with PEJ, Westinghouse and Bechtel will complete a site-specific design for a plant featuring three AP1000 reactors.
The design/engineering documentation includes the main components of the power plant: the nuclear island, the turbine island and the associated installations and auxiliary equipment, as well as administrative buildings and infrastructure related to the safety of the facility.
The contract also involves supporting the investment process and bringing it in line with current legal regulations in cooperation with the National Atomic Energy Agency and the Office of Technical Inspection.
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Norway Companies To Evaluate SMRs
- Work will include assessment of potential suppliers
(NucNet) US-based advanced engineering company Amentum and Multiconsult Norge, an Oslo, Norway-based engineering and consultancy firm, have been chosen to evaluate the potential for building a small modular reactor (SMR) in Norway, helping Halden municipality, located about 70 miles southeast of Oslo, to decide whether nuclear power can meet advanced energy needs.
The two companies will carry out an assessment of potential suppliers of equipment and services within Norway and from abroad, as well as reporting on technical standards, environmental impact and other key aspects of any construction program.
They were awarded the contract by Halden Kjernekraft, a company set up by Norsk Kjernekraft, Ostfold Energi and the municipality of Halden to investigate the construction of a nuclear power plant using SMR technology.
Bergen, Norway-based Norsk Kjernekraft, which has already signed a number of agreements with municipalities and reactor companies related to nuclear development, is a nuclear project company. Ostfold Energi a Norwegian power utility with interests in hydropower, wind and heat.
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Last Energy’s South Wales UK Nuclear Project Gets US Export Nod
- Microreactor developer Last Energy says it has received a letter of intent from the Export-Import Bank of the United States for $103.7 million debt financing for its project in South Wales, UK.
(WNN) Last Energy says that the letter from the bank’s structured and project finance division confirms its “willingness to diligence” the financing and follows an in-depth review of Last Energy’s “technology, business model, manufacturing plan and access to nuclear fuel. Upon final commitment, the Bank’s facility would cover Last Energy’s entire costs for a single power plant installation.”
Last Energy said in a press statement on its website the project would cost about $400 million. The reactor technology is based on a pressurized water reactor with a capacity of 20 MWe or 80 MWt. Power plant modules would be built off-site and assembled in modules.
A Last Energy plant, referred to as the PWR-20, is comprised of a few dozen modules that, it says, “snap together like a Lego kit.” The PWR-20 is designed to be fabricated, transported, and assembled within 24 months, and is sized to serve private industrial customers, including data centers.
Under its development model, Last Energy owns and operates its plug-and-play power plant on the customer’s site, bypassing the decade-long development timelines of electric transmission grid upgrade requirements.
The company has been advancing plans to develop four PWR-20 units on the vacant site of the Llynfi coal-fired power station. The Llynfi power station – a 120 MW coal plant – operated between 1951 and 1977. Following decommissioning in 1977, the 14-acre site has remained vacant.
Last Energy said it has been actively engaging with the UK’s Office for Nuclear Regulation, Natural Resources Wales, Planning and Environment Decisions Wales, the Environmental Agency, and with local and national Welsh and UK officials, and will continue to do so throughout the project. The company said in October it was targeting 2027 to commission the first plant, “following a successful planning and licensing process”.
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DOE Selects Six Firms to Supply Enriched Uranium
Leveraging a commitment of $2.7 billion the US Department of Energy this week selected six firms to qualify to compete for contracts to supply low enriched uranium (U235 < 5%)to the agency. The government will then sell the material to US nuclear utilities as part of a program to reduce reliance on Russian imports.
Russia currently has about 44% of the world’s uranium enrichment capacity and supplies 35% of US imports for nuclear fuel.
Once US utilities have the enriched product, in the form of UF6, it will be up to them to contract for services to transform it into fabricated fuel for specific types of reactors.
The Nuclear Fuel Cycle. Image: US NRC
The contracts are expected to be active for the next decade with a minimum guarantee for each supplier and a maximum value of all awards of up to $3.4 billion.
DOE selected these 6 companies that will be able to compete for future work to supply LEU, fostering strong commercial sector investment. The companies selected have varying degrees of readiness to produce new production of enriched uranium.
- American Centrifuge Operating, LLC
- General Matter, Inc.
- Global Laser Enrichment, LLC
- Louisiana Energy Services, LLC
- Laser Isotope Separation Technologies, Inc.
- Orano Federal Services, LLC
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Michael Goff said, “These contracts generated from this action will help spur the safe and responsible build-out of uranium enrichment capacity in the United States. We must increase our capacity to produce enriched uranium domestically to support the energy security and resilience of the Nation.”
The contracts are likely to stimulate new US uranium mining operations either expanding existing operations or promoting new ones. Key choke points in the fuel cycle is that the US has only one operating hard rock uranium mining mill, located in Utah, and only one conversion plant to transform UF6 into solid forms located in Illinois.
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