Ukraine selects site for new nuclear power plant with US reactors

Ukraine is reviving plans to build a nuclear power plant at Chyhyryn in Cherkasy Oblast. A four-unit plant featuring US-designed AP1000 reactors is planned for the site of a nuclear power plant that was never completed in the 1970s and 1980s. The country currently has 15 Russian-designed VVER units, but plans to build nine more using US technology.

Ukraine’s energy company Energoatom announced that it had taken an important step toward the Chyhyryn nuclear power plant project. Ukraine plans to build up to four US-made AP1000 reactors there, supporting its national strategy to develop nuclear energy through 2050.

Chyhyryn municipal representatives transferred around 38 hectares of land for the future plant to Energoatom for permanent use. They also issued a permit for land-use planning covering the plots in question. The city is in central Ukraine’s Cherkasy Oblast, south of the capital, Kyiv. 

Ukraine agreed to purchase US AP1000 units from Westinghouse in 2021. The contract covers the delivery of five units, and work on the first of them, at the Khmelnytskyi nuclear power plant, was launched by both parties in April this year. Ukraine plans to build nine new units in total, expanding its current fleet of 15 VVER units, six of which are at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, occupied by Russia.

Reviving the abandoned town of Orbita

The Chyhyryn site is not entirely new to the energy sector: original plans in the 1970s envisaged building a coal-fired power plant there. In the 1980s, the project was transformed into a nuclear power plant. Although construction of the plant and the town of Orbita, designed to house up to 20,000 people, began successfully in the mid-1980s, work was halted in May 1989. The town is now abandoned, with only around 120 residents, and all that remains of the plant construction site is a ruin. Energoatom now expects construction of the new plant to breathe new life into the area.

“Energoatom intends to revive Orbita and make it one of the most modern cities, like Netishyn, Yuzhnoukrainsk or Varash. The successful implementation of these plans is, of course, a major investment in post-war reconstruction and in maintaining the country’s energy security. The introduction of innovative nuclear technologies will make Ukraine an energy leader with unique experience and its own process engineering solutions,” said Energoatom chief Petro Kotin.