Euratom to help strengthen security of nuclear fuel supply

Westinghouse Electric Company (Sweden and UK) and eight European consortium partners have received €2m in funding from the European Union, they announced today.

The funding will be provided to the ESSANUF (European Supply of Safe Nuclear Fuel) project, which  focuses on licensing alternative nuclear fuel supplies for Russian-designed pressurised water reactors (VVER) operating in the EU.

A total of five member states are involved in the project: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary and Slovakia. Altogether they operate 18 VVERs, which currently depend entirely on supply from Russian fuel manufacturers and provide up to 52% of the five member states’ electricity supply.

The EU financing will be provided by the research and training programme Euratom, which is part of Horizon 2020. It is intended to diversify nuclear fuel sources in the short to medium term and in full compliance with international nuclear safety standards.

Commenting on the funding, Yves Brachet, Westinghouse president for Europe, the Middle East and the Africa region, said: “The decision by the EU to fund this project is significant.

“It demonstrates that the EU is serious about taking measures to improve its energy security through a diversification of its nuclear fuel sources.”

Westinghouse, a group company of Toshiba Corporation and the world’s leading nuclear energy company, will co-ordinate the project.

ÚJV Řež (Czech Republic), the Lappeenranta University of Technology (Finland), the National Nuclear Laboratory (UK), NucleoCon and VUJE (Slovakia), the National Science Center Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology (Ukraine), the Institute for Transuranium Elements of the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, and Enusa Industrias Avanzadas (Spain) comprise the consortium partners.