Turboatom and Toshiba team up for turbine upgrades

05 July 2018

Ukrainian nuclear power plant operator Energoatom has welcomed the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Ukraine's Turboatom and Japan's Toshiba Energy Systems & Solutions Corporation. Through the agreement, the companies will initially cooperate on upgrading turbine island equipment at nuclear power plants in Ukraine.

The MoU was signed yesterday at Energoatom's headquarters in Kiev by Turboatom general director Victor Subbotin and Goro Yanase, vice president of Toshiba Energy Systems & Solutions. The signing was witnessed by Energoatom President Yury Nedashkovsky (Image: Energoatom)

The companies agreed to begin cooperation aimed at realising projects to modernise turbine equipment at nuclear power plants. "The memorandum states that cooperation between Turboatom and Toshiba will be based on the high potential and great experience of both companies in studying and realising new engineering and technical solutions in the field of nuclear energy," Energoatom said.

Energoatom operates all of Ukraine's four nuclear power plants - Zaporozhe, Rovno, South Ukraine and Khmelnitsky - which comprise 15 nuclear reactors, including 13 VVER-1000s and two VVER-440s with a total capacity of 13,835 MWe.

Commenting on the signing of the MoU, Nedashkovsky said: "Energoatom supports cooperation between Turboatom and Toshiba. Our company undertakes big programmes of safety, reliability and efficiency improvement of energy equipment at Ukrainian nuclear power plants and Turboatom is one of Energoatom's main partners in these projects. I am confident that cooperation of our partners Turboatom and Toshiba will contribute to development of energy engineering in Ukraine and consequently increase effectiveness of Ukraine's equipment modernisation."

Turboatom's Subbotin said the signing of the MoU is "a timely and important step" in developing cooperation between Ukrainian and Japanese companies. "I hope that together with Toshiba we will shortly decide on the priority projects and we will be able to agree on a plan of cooperative actions in September at the 10th International Economy Forum in Kharkiv."

"The signed memorandum is a step that gives the possibility to contribute to the uprate of energy equipment at Ukrainian nuclear power plants as well as nuclear energy facilities in other countries," said Toshiba Energy Systems & Solutions' Yanase. "I am really happy that Toshiba will contribute to making more complete decisions in the field of nuclear energy together with Turboatom due to the fact that our companies are leaders in nuclear power plant equipment manufacturing."

The signing of the agreement follows the signing in October 2017 of an MoU between Energoatom itself and Toshiba Energy Systems & Solutions on cooperation in the modernisation of the turbine island equipment of Ukrainian nuclear power plants. That bilateral MoU covered increasing power output, efficiency and safety through the upgrading of turbine island equipment. It also aimed to expand cooperation in the long-term service of installed equipment at nuclear power plants.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News