The number of nuclear reactors that we plan to build literally the day after tomorrow is dazzling. Considering that the nuclear industry today is the hope and support of our energy system, it’s time to separate the mischief of the Energoatom management from objective needs and real results.
Of course, recently Energoatom has become an entire corporation, which will definitely have a supervisory board, but we will not overestimate this reform.
Yes, the role of nuclear power plants in the energy system is key. Last year, they fell just short of half of the country's total electricity production (in winter, at times, their share of output reached 60%). At the end of 2023, Ukrainian nuclear power plants generated 52.4 billion kWh, and the plan for this year is 53.6 billion kWh. It is possible to increase capacity at least for the sake of the possibility of repairing existing ones.
In fact, it is thanks to cheap nuclear electricity that we manage to maintain relatively low prices for the population (by the way, two-thirds of the company’s revenue was spent on compensation for these tariffs - 128 out of 190 billion UAH in 2023).
All this is provided by thousands of workers. Many of them are in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. And although the units themselves have not yet been fired at, the missile trajectories passed directly above the nuclear reactors of the same South Ukrainian one, at an altitude of 100–200 meters, and there have already been flights through the industrial zone of the stations. And this really threatens the world with a catastrophe worse than Fukushima.
True, war is war, and schemes are schemes. They have been spinning around NAEC for years. Energoatom tenders have long become a fascinating puzzle for journalists - in them you can often find participants with prices much higher than market prices (sometimes several times), led to victory by nothing other than the finger of fate. Energoatom is terribly annoyed by this. Not inflated prices, of course, but close attention to the company’s purchases. There they explain everything as enemy IPSOs and continue to change nothing.
In matters of planning too. A couple of years ago, the leadership of NAEK and its friendly Ministry of Energy remembered the fairy tale about Khoja Nasreddin and teaching a donkey to speak. Well, remember, either the donkey will die, or the padishah will have no time for it. They wisely assigned the role of padishah to Bankova. Since then, with regularity, approximately once a month, they have voiced grandiose plans for future mega-constructions of reactors of various types and in unprecedented quantities.
We started with the completion of one or two units of Soviet design at the Khmelnytsky NPP. Then the blocks began to self-replicate, and at the moment there are already dozens of them. True, the lion's share of them are microreactors that do not exist “in hardware” at all, which they promise to construct in the next decade, but who cares about such trifles. Everyone knows in advance that later the plans will be adjusted, throwing most of them into a landfill, and... new ones will be drawn. But the continuous generation of good news is useful in the fight to maintain a place. And then, the larger the planning, the greater the financial flows for it. Actually, the business of spending money on developing all kinds of feasibility studies is by no means Energoatom’s know-how.
Unfortunately, the process is not so harmless. Partners are getting used to the fact that statements by Ukrainian top officials can simply be hot air with kindergarten-level arguments, and the attitude towards us is changing, not for the better.
A recent example is the statement by the Minister of Energy: “... in the summer or autumn of 2024, Ukraine plans to begin construction of four new nuclear reactors. We need reactor vessels, which will have to be imported. We want to immediately build the third and fourth units (at the Khmelnitsky NPP - I.M.) ... We want to compensate for those at the Zaporozhye NPP.”
Actually, starting construction is not difficult. Energoatom says that they are already working on completing the third block and have never lied - they have installed a rainproof roof on the block and are plastering the utility rooms. Who said this is not construction? There is also a very economical option - put up a sign “there will be block number such and such.” At the Rivne NPP, this has been standing instead of the fifth unit since the time of Yanukovych.
But in our case, everything is somewhat more complicated and can put a big dent in the pockets of consumers.
Negotiations on the purchase of “Bulgarian” blocks have been officially underway since last summer. The deadlines are gradually being postponed, but the process is not stopped. Sofia’s key condition is to sell them for no less than 600 million euros. That’s exactly how much Bulgaria bought them from Russia for. Scenarios with higher figures are also being announced - up to 750 million euros. At the same time, the Bulgarians claim that the Ukrainian side expects to finance the deal from EU assistance funds. Curious, is the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine aware?
The purchase of US reactors has in fact already begun. After some years of negotiations, in December 2023, Energoatom announced that it would buy the rector for a new power unit at the Khmelnytsky NPP for another $437.5 million. We have already told you that it is not so much that we want to buy as they want to sell us two reactors, which Westinghouse must get rid of by 2025 under a debt settlement agreement. And it was frankly difficult with buyers.
Even during the construction of their units, the Chinese achieved a level of production localization of 70%. Now they have their own similar reactor. The attempt to come to an agreement with the Indians is also not very successful - the project to build six reactors there has stalled, and according to the old Indian tradition, no one is saying yes or no. And so it has been for many, many years. The Europeans were also not eager. But Energoatom was ready to buy.
True, one little thing got in the way - there was no money, as always.
Not only for reactors, by the way. There is no money for cheaper facilities, and in war conditions, for those more needed by the energy system. In terms of investment, last summer NAEK melancholy stated that there were not enough funds even for shelters for personnel at the South Atomic Power Plant and the Khmelnitsky NPP. It sounded like this: “... in 2023, it was planned to design a civil protection shelter at ... the place of VP HAES and carry out pre-design work and disaggregate technical capabilities before designing the development of an additional supply shelter for industrial personnel oh Maidan VP PAES. Due to the financial deficit, the project of the joints at VP HAES and VP PAES will be transferred.”
It turned out that there are much more important things than spending several hundred million hryvnia on shelters for station workers. Then the respected management was pulled back a little, but the priorities remained.
I don’t even know what it’s called - in war conditions, to start as many as four construction projects in the absence of funds and construction resources for even one? Can't find a decent answer...
In the old fashioned way this would be called sabotage. These are humanistic times, so (later) they will call all this an ineffective use of resources. And they wag their finger. Maybe even straight from the supervisory board.
