Ukraine nuclear company has signed a deal with the U.S. nuclear power company Westinghouse to supply fuel to all of its atomic power stations in an effort to end the reliance on Russian supplies. Westinghouse will also build new nuclear units to increases the total to Nine from Five earlier and the company will establish an engineering centre in the country.
Building on earlier agreements, the deal with Westinghouse stipulates that the company will supply fuel to all of Ukraine atomic plants. Nuclear power covers around a half of all Ukrainian electricity needs and the energy minister said that in future Ukraine could also be a supplier of electricity to western Europe.
According to a statement by the state atomic energy company Energoatom, Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said that they will modernise their fleet of nuclear power units, which will produce clean, safe and reliable energy without any Russian influence
Ukraine has four working nuclear power stations, the largest being in Zaporizhzhia is now under Russian control, but is still operated by Ukrainian technicians. Energoatom has now denied a report that it might shut down the Zaporizhzhia plant if Kyiv loses control of operations at the site. Ukraine has repeatedly raised safety concerns about the plant since Russia’s invasion began on Feb. 24. On Friday, it warned that it was running out of spare parts.