NPHyCo organises national workshop in Ukraine

6/28/2024

On 27 & 28 June 2024, NPHyCo organised a national workshop in Ukraine to discuss the project, its outcomes and potential benefits for Ukrainian nuclear power plants (NPP). This workshop was led by project partner ESG and was kindly hosted by the Rivne NPP.
In terms of attendance, participants included representatives from both the Khmelnitsky and Rivne NPPs and the Energoatom Directorate with branch Atomprojectengineering, both in person and online. It provided an opportunity to share some updates about the project and progress made to date. In this respect, it was noted that work on the project is progressing well, with the following conclusions to date:● In terms of results obtained so far, and the technical feasibility of nuclear and hydrogen co-generation, several scenarios have been developed.● Furthermore, several nuclear operators have shown great interest in the potential for such coupling.● In terms of downstream users who will make use of the hydrogen produced, what matters to them is reliability of supply and cost competitiveness, rather than the source of the hydrogen.
During the first day of the workshop, project partner ESG provided an overview of the potential for having a hydrogen production plant coupled to both the Rivne and Khmelnitsky nuclear power plants. In this respect, aspects relating to location, access to demineralised water, cooling water, compressed air, nitrogen as well as the handling of waste water were covered for both nuclear power plants. This was followed by a presentation on the licensing roadmap relating to the integration of a hydrogen nuclear power plant and a nuclear power plant. It included an overview of the EU legislation which applies to hyrogen production plants and nuclear power plants, and highlighted important aspects which need to be borne in mind. In addition, information was shared about Ukrainian legislation which would apply to such co-generation projects.
On the second day, more detailed presentations were shared regarding two areas of work being undertaken by the project. The first one relates to the Economic Roadmap which is looking at how income can be generated by the coupling of an nuclear power plant with a hydrogen production plant. In terms of tasks completed to date, these include developing cost models for three electrolyser technologies, identifying the costs for modifying the Rivne nuclear power plant and determining the cost related to each integration scenario.
A presentation was also given relating to the External Hazard Impact Assessment, The goal of this work is to evaluate the impact on an nuclear power plant of an accident scenario on an hydrogen production plant. To do this, work has been undertaken to identify potential accident scenarios, ,the degrees of plant integration, and finally the application of two safety analysis methodologies: probabilistic and deterministic.