With six reactors
Ukraine is planning Europe’s largest nuclear power plant
January 29, 2024, 5:54 p.m
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The Ukrainian government wants to massively expand the Khmelnytsky nuclear power plant. It is intended to compensate for the loss of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is occupied by Russian troops. The most powerful nuclear power plant in Europe would be built in western Ukraine.
Ukraine is planning to build four more reactors at the Khmelnytsky nuclear power plant with Western help. “And with the output of six reactors, it will be the largest in Europe and even more powerful than the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant,” said Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko. Construction is scheduled to begin this year.
Reactors three and four will therefore be of the Soviet design, type VVER-1000. Two more are to be built of the US AP-1000 type from Westinghouse. Taken together, the power plant would have a gross output of more than 6,200 megawatts. “We see this as a mechanism to compensate for the capacities of the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant,” said the minister.
At the same time, he emphasized that the nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine would sooner or later come back under Ukrainian control. “The question is in what condition we will get it back and whether we will be able to put it back into operation immediately,” said Halushchenko. Zaporizhzhia in the south of Ukraine is currently Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. The Russian army took control of the facility in March 2022, shortly after the start of the war of aggression against Ukraine at the end of February. Its six reactors have now been shut down.
The power plant has already come under attack several times and has often been cut off from the power supply. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) recently announced that landmines had once again been planted around the plant.
With currently two Soviet-design reactors, each with a gross output of 1,000 megawatts, the Khmelynzky nuclear power plant is the smallest of Ukraine’s four nuclear power plants. It is about 180 kilometers from the Polish border. Before the Russian invasion almost two years ago, more than 50 percent of Ukrainian electricity production was based on nuclear power. Kiev regularly exports surplus electricity to the European Union.