On Wednesday, Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse joined Bechtel and Polish utility company Polskie Elektrownie Jadrowe in signing an Engineering Services Contract for Poland’s first nuclear power plant.
The contract for the plant at the Lubuatoto-Kopalino site in Pomerania includes finalizing site-specific design for three Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear islands based on the Generation III+ nuclear reactor, as well as Turbine Island and Balance of Plant design work and support for PEJ to prepare license application materials, training programs, and operations and maintenance procedures. Work on the contract begins immediately.
“One week ago, Westinghouse and Bechtel, leaders of the American civil nuclear power sector, formed a consortium to design and build the first nuclear power plant under the Polish Nuclear Power Program,” said Anna Łukaszewska-Trzeciakowska, Government Plenipotentiary for Strategic Energy Infrastructure. “Two days later, Polskie Elektrownie Jądrowe received a decision on environmental conditions for this project in Pomerania. Today we witness signing a contract for the plant design and engineering. Westinghouse and Bechtel are completing a sister project known as Plant Vogtle in the American state of Georgia. Their combined experience, lessons learned from the Vogtle project, optimizations implemented on this basis, and the world’s most advanced technological and engineering know-how of Westinghouse and Bechtel are now being employed to fundamentally rebuild the Polish energy mix, provide a strong impulse to strengthen the Polish economy and train Polish technicians and engineers.”
In the United States, at the Vogtle site in Georgia, one AP1000 unit is operating and producing power for the grid, while a second unit is ramping up operations and is expected to complete its initial fuel load later this year or in early 2024. There are four AP1000 reactors operating in China with another six under construction and the reactor is under consideration in multiple sits in Central and Easter Europe, the United Kingdom and in North America.