American Westinghouse has officially confirmed that Bulgarian VVER-1000 reactors from the Belene NPP, which are planned to be installed at power units No. 3 and No. 4 of the Khmelnytsky NPP, will be able to operate on American fuel.

As reported by JSC Energoatom on Wednesday, this was assured by Westinghouse Electric Sweden Managing Director Aziz Dag in an official letter to the company.

"Westinghouse confirms the ability to provide a compatible fuel assembly design for the first and subsequent cycles of Khmelnytsky NPP-3 and Khmelnytsky NPP-4 based on the V-466V reactor in a timely manner," the letter says.

Also, as Aziz Dag noted, given the time schedules for the implementation of the nuclear fuel project, his company recommends starting a discussion of technical details and determining the scope of work on the examination and implementation of the fuel project in the near future.

In addition, as noted by Energoatom, the safety analysis report provided by specialists states that the active zone of the VVER-1000 V-466V reactor consists of 163 TVSA fuel assemblies. This type of TVSA has long been used in the active zones of VVER-1000 reactors, which are successfully operated in Ukraine.

"Thus, the Westinghouse company has debunked the manipulative statements of pseudo-experts about the impossibility of using American fuel in the reactors of the Bulgarian Belene NPP, which Ukraine plans to purchase from Sofia," Energoatom noted.