The first batch of nuclear fuel produced by Westinghouse Electric Company was loaded into the reactor of the fifth power unit of the Bulgarian Kozloduy NPP during scheduled maintenance. Technical work on the power unit will be completed on June 9, said Valentin Nikolov, director of the nuclear power plant.
According to him, 43 cassettes with American nuclear fuel were installed in power unit No. 5. It will be put into operation on June 9.
The station started operating 50 years ago, and now we will be the first nuclear power plant to fully switch to non-Russian fuel.
Nikolov said that the NPP will prematurely terminate the contract for the supply of Russian nuclear fuel. The process of switching to fuel from new suppliers will take 4 years.
Rosatom recalled that due to the loading of a new type of fuel into the VVER-1000 reactor, Russian guarantees for the maintenance of the fifth power unit expire.
Soviet VVER-1000 reactors are installed at the fifth and sixth power units. Since the 1970s, a total of 37 such reactors have been built.
