By Luiza Ilie
BUCHAREST (Reuters) – The United States is working with Ukraine on a roadmap for its post-war energy network that will include safe nuclear energy technologies as well as renewable energy sources, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said on Wednesday.
Ukraine has lost half of its production capacity due to Russian attacks on its power plants, leading to ongoing shortages and massive power outages in all regions.
“Right now they are under attack and we have to help them through this period. We need to strengthen their existing assets,” Granholm told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of an annual Transatlantic Energy and Climate Cooperation. P-TECC) conference in the Romanian capital Bucharest.
“But… we are making plans together with them for what the Ukrainian network of the future will look like,” she said.
“So it could involve microreactors. It could involve SMRs. It will certainly involve distributed solar and wind generation combined with batteries. So that work is being done now.”
She said new nuclear capacity could be part of the future electricity grid, as long as it is designed in a safe way.
Ukraine operates nine nuclear reactors at three plants in the area it controls that produce more than 55% of the country’s electricity needs, but Kiev wants to expand the sector to compensate for the loss of Zaporizhia’s six units, which closed shortly after the invasion were seized by Russia in Russia. 2022.
In January, Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said it expected to start building four new nuclear reactors at the Khmelnytskyi nuclear power plant this summer or fall.
Ukrainian state nuclear power company Energoatom has also signed an agreement with Westinghouse to build further reactors.
“We have an agreement to look at deploying nine AP1000s in the country,” Westinghouse vice president of corporate affairs Margaret Cosentino told P-TECC in Bucharest.
“Obviously we’re not breaking ground right now, but… we’ve been working closely with them to look at Kamilnitsky 5 and what we can do now to get projects ready for once the shovel is ready. the war is over.”
