Polskie Elektrownie Jądrowe (PEJ), Poland’s designated entity tasked with creating the nation’s first nuclear plant in Pomerania, has signed an engineering providers contract with a Westinghouse-Bechtel consortium, permitting site-specific work to start on the AP1000 energy plant.
The businesses introduced the “historic” contract on Sept. 27, one week after nuclear know-how large Westinghouse and world engineering agency Bechtel formalized a partnership to design and construct Poland’s inaugural AP1000 nuclear plant. The agreements mark vital milestones towards the business operation of the much-watched reactor mission, which is geared to fulfill Poland’s purpose to start nuclear energy technology in 2033.
Heavyweight Consortium for a Pioneering Undertaking
PEJ has mentioned that it has favored a consortium mannequin “from the start,” as a result of it offers a chance to reap the benefits of the “distinctive competence and expertise” Westinghouse and Bechtel gained through the development of the Vogtle enlargement, a twin-AP1000 reactor mission that’s nearing completion within the U.S.
Bechtel, which joined the Vogtle enlargement mission, in Georgia in 2017, has notably designed, constructed, or supplied providers to 80 nuclear reactors within the U.S. and 150 worldwide, throughout all main reactor designs. “This can be a staff with demonstrated capacity to ship on giant nuclear vitality tasks,” mentioned David Durham, president for Power Techniques at Westinghouse. “The fleet expertise we have now earned with our superior, confirmed AP1000 know-how, together with a 100% full design and development classes discovered, will serve Poland properly because it seeks decarbonization and elevated vitality safety.”
Below the 18-month engineering providers contract, Westinghouse and Bechtel will collectively design the nuclear plant, although these actions may also contain Poland’s home business, PEJ mentioned. “Practically 2 million man-hours and the help of the business’s prime professionals have been envisaged for this purpose,” it famous.
The design/engineering documentation portion of the contract entails “the primary parts of the facility plant, i.e. the nuclear island, the turbine island and the related installations and auxiliary gear, in addition to administrative buildings and infrastructure associated to the protection of the power,” the entity mentioned on Wednesday. “The first goal of the conceptual design/engineering is to outline the necessities and design/engineering standards, and specify norms and requirements in accordance with which the Polish nuclear mission might be executed.” The engineering work at this stage will outcome “in additional than 400 remaining deliverables,” it added.
The Pomeranian mission might be based mostly on Westinghouse and Bechtel’s expertise in constructing Vogtle Unit 4, which is scheduled to be positioned in service through the late fourth quarter of 2023 or the primary quarter of 2024, PEJ famous. Whereas Vogtle Unit 3 grew to become the primary newly constructed nuclear unit within the U.S. in additional than 30 years to enter operation on July 31, Vogtle 4 has “launched enhancements” over Vogtle 3, PEJ mentioned.
A Contract Designed to Guarantee Efficiency, Clean and Secure Operations and Upkeep
PEJ mentioned provisions within the engineering providers contract signed on Wednesday may also “regulate cooperation through the processes of acquiring additional permits.” These embrace the event of technical specs for the deliberate nuclear plant’s preliminary design. The specs will mirror “parts of the set up used, in order that [they comply] with the required efficiency parameters,” it famous.
Nonetheless, the contract can be poised to grow to be “the premise for an additional contract overlaying the subsequent part of development of the primary nuclear energy plant in Poland,” it added. “The developed outcomes would be the foundation for the preparation of documentation for the aim of acquiring a development allow for the facility plant, in order to additional execute the nuclear energy plant mission in Pomerania based mostly on the very best Polish and European security requirements and norms. As well as, the contract offers for an analysis of the proposed radiological safety options and security analyses deliberate in accordance with the necessities of the Atomic Legislation.”
In one other vital set of provisions, the contract will help journeys by Polish workers to the U.S. to assist them “enhance key competencies within the design/engineering and protected operation of the newest technology of reactors,” PEJ mentioned. “On this method, the chosen engineers may also be concerned in executing the top outcomes stipulated within the contract. As well as, they are going to acquire the required expertise coming immediately from working with each Westinghouse and Bechtel.” This facet “is especially vital from the angle of each the investor and the federal government,” the entity underscored.
Treading Rigorously to Guarantee Continued Progress on a Deliberate Nuclear Growth
Poland selected Westinghouse know-how for its first large-scale nuclear plant in November 2022 amid a fierce worldwide contest that included a few of the world’s most distinguished giant nuclear plant distributors. As POWER has reported intimately, the mission is pivotal to Poland’s broader vitality plans, that are motivated by vitality safety issues prompted by Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, and a quickly increasing demand for vitality from business, together with a number of particular financial zones.
Poland has indicated it may help the development of about 6 GW to 9 GW of large-scale, pressurized water Gen III and III+ nuclear reactor designs, “zero-emission sources” that the federal government tasks may “account for half of the put in capability in 2040.” The nation’s February 2021 vitality coverage requires its first nuclear energy reactor to start development in 2026 and be accomplished by 2033.
Shortly after the Polish authorities’s decision choosing Westinghouse AP1000 know-how for the Pomerania plant in November 2022, PEJ signed a cooperation settlement with Westinghouse in December 2022. In February 2023, Westinghouse and PEJ concluded a contract for pre-design work. Poland had awaited a proper deal cementing phrases between Westinghouse and Bechtel earlier than formalizing the essential engineering providers contract on Wednesday.
Nonetheless, the mission has in tandem marked crucial progress on the regulatory entrance. PEJ final week obtained a call on environmental circumstances from Poland’s Normal Director for Environmental Safety for the Pomerania mission. The choice is a “key allow obtained within the funding course of,” PEJ defined. “[S]ubsequent administrative approvals, together with the placement choice and the development allow, should be in step with the phrases and circumstances contained within the choice on environmental circumstances,” it famous. PEJ submitted its Environmental Affect Evaluation Report for a nuclear plant on the web site in March 2022. As well as, Poland has wrapped up nationwide consultations in addition to consultations with 14 neighboring nations associated to the mission’s environmental circumstances.
Nuclear Expertise Authorized Dispute Headed for Arbitration
A second nuclear mission is reportedly underneath growth, led by ZE PAK, certainly one of Poland’s largest non-public vitality teams, PGE Polska Grupa Energetyczna (PGE), an enormous built-in vitality agency majority-owned by Poland’s authorities, and South Korea’s Korea Hydro & Nuclear Energy (KHNP). Whereas the standing of that mission is unclear, KHNP has pursued a nuclear mission based mostly on APR1400 know-how for a web site in Pątnów, central Poland.
The APR1400 is a two-loop, evolutionary pressurized water reactor (PWR) design, advanced from Korea Electrical Energy Corp.’s (KEPCO’s) OPR1000 Korean Normal Nuclear Energy Plant design and Combustion Engineering’s (now Westinghouse’s) System 80+ design. Whereas developed to be used in South Korea, KHNP in 2010 offered 4 APR1400 reactors to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Three of those reactors (at Barakah) are already related to the grid.
Westinghouse, nevertheless, has legally disputed features of the APR1400’s know-how licensing. In line with the Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania-headquartered agency, KEPCO’s Superior Energy Reactor (APR) and its variants (APR1000, APR1400, and OPR1000) are “derived from, based mostly on, and incorporates know-how” licensed to KEPCO and KHNP by Westinghouse’s “predecessor-in-interest” Combustion Engineering. Westinghouse notes it acquired Combustion Engineering in 2000, assuming the function of the System 80 and System 80+ licensor underneath a 1997 license settlement.
In October 2022, Westinghouse filed a criticism with the U.S. District Court docket for the District of Columbia, searching for injunctive aid in opposition to KHNP after it discovered that KEPCO was poised to enter right into a memorandum of intent (MOI) with the Polish authorities to ship APR1400 nuclear vegetation, in addition to potential offers with the Czech Republic and Saudi Arabia. Within the criticism, Westinghouse asserted that KHNP’s supply of technical data relating to South Korean reactor designs exterior South Korea constitutes a “retransfer of the know-how” licensed to the South Korean entities.
Westinghouse urged the federal courtroom to rule that the APR1400 is topic to evaluate by the U.S. Division of Power underneath Half 810 of Title 10 underneath the Code of Federal Laws, which implements provisions of the Atomic Power Act. The corporate famous that as a part of a 10-year enterprise cooperation settlement signed in 2010, Westinghouse and KEPCO sought and obtained particular DOE authorization underneath Half 810 for KEPCO’s provide of APR1400 reactors to the UAE. “Though Poland doesn’t require particular authorization underneath Half 810, Westinghouse—because the U.S. exporter and licensor of the Licensed Expertise that may be retransferred to Poland as included in APR1400—nonetheless should adjust to Half 810 reporting necessities,” its criticism alleged.
However on Nov. 29, 2022, KEPCO and KHNP urged the courtroom to dismiss the case, or in its place, compel arbitration—basically requiring Westinghouse to take part in resolving the dispute. KEPCO in its response pointedly urged that Westinghouse’s criticism was factually poor—“the chief being that the deliberate know-how switch at problem doesn’t incorporate Westinghouse’s licensed know-how or any by-product thereof.”
Nonetheless, Westinghouse’s greater authorized downside, it argued, is that “the exact same 1997 License Settlement that offers Westinghouse the best to hunt to compel Defendants’ compliance with the Half 810 laws additionally requires that any disputes between the events be submitted to binding arbitration within the Republic of Korea.” And, “by incorporation of the relevant Worldwide Arbitration Guidelines of the Korean Industrial Arbitration Board, Westinghouse and Defendants additionally agreed to delegate any query of arbitrability to the arbitrator.”
KEPCO and KHNP mentioned that they filed a request for arbitration with the Korean Industrial Arbitration Board in October 2022. “Westinghouse has absolutely participated within the arbitration,” they famous.
On Sept. 18, U.S. District Court docket Decide Amit Mehta discovered for the South Korean firms and dismissed the case. In a nine-page memorandum opinion, Mehta dominated that Westinghouse lacked a “non-public reason for motion to implement Half 810” and due to this fact “didn’t state a declare underneath the Declaratory Judgement Act.”
Nonetheless, Westinghouse Power Techniques’ head Durham, on Sept. 19 instructed POWER that Westinghouse intends to attraction the choice given its bigger implications for nuclear know-how exports. “Westinghouse’s dispute with KEPCO/KHNP crosses a number of jurisdictions and covers two points: compliance with U.S. nuclear know-how export management necessities; and KEPCO/KHNP’s long-standing obligations to adjust to Westinghouse’s mental property rights that they agreed to contractually,” Durham mentioned.
“The usage of Westinghouse mental property exterior of Korea is the principal dispute between the events,” he mentioned. “The choice by the U.S. District Court docket merely holds that export management enforcement resides with the U.S. authorities.”
Durham additionally famous that the choice may have “no bearing” on the continuing South Korean arbitration continuing in opposition to KEPCO/KHNP “involving KEPCO/KHNP’s non-allowed switch of Westinghouse’s mental property exterior Korea.” Westinghouse continues to be “dedicated to defending our mental property and we absolutely anticipate to achieve success within the arbitration on all points,” he famous. “The arbitration panel has confirmed {that a} remaining ruling isn’t anticipated till late 2025.”
—Sonal Patel is a POWER senior affiliate editor (@sonalcpatel, @POWERmagazine).
