Amec to advise on Polish plant
Amec Nuclear UK has been selected as technical adviser to provide support for the program to build Poland's first nuclear power plant.
Amec's role will be to support PGE EJ1, a subsidiary of Polish state-owned energy group Polska Grupa Energetyczna (PGE) set up to build and run the plant, during the development and execution of the nuclear new-build project. Amec will support PGE EJ1 in meeting the requirements of the yet-to-be-selected reactor vendor and EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contractor and other key service providers. The scope of the work will cover 13 areas of close cooperation from licensing to start-up and testing.
According to PGE EJ1, the bid is worth just over PLN 1.3 billion (approximately $430 million), with PLN 205 million ($67 million) of that for "required work" and PLN 1.1 billion ($361 million) for optional services. PGE EJ1 president Jaceck Cichosz described the selection of the technical advisor as a strategic decision, enabling key project activities requiring nuclear expertise and competencies to be carried out.
Amec's bid was selected following a public competitive procurement process. Also bidding were a UK-Swiss consortium of Mott MacDonald and AF-Consult, a Polish-Belgian consortium of URS Polska and Tractebel, and US company Exelon Generation.
Polish national energy plans envisage two 3000 MWe nuclear power plants. Sites at Choczewo, Gaski and Zarnowiec are under consideration, and Australian company Worley Parsons was contracted in 2013 to carry out site characterization work. A timeline issued earlier this year by the Polish government foresees selection of the location and reactor technology for the first plant by the end of 2016, with all the necessary construction approvals in place by the end of 2018. The first unit would then be set to start up by the end of 2024, with a second unit starting up by the end of 2030. The second nuclear power plant is scheduled for operation around 2035. PGE has signed non-exclusive agreements with reactor vendors to investigate Areva's EPR, GE-Hitachi's ABWR and ESBWR, and Westinghouse's AP1000 as potential technology choices for the project.
Amec recently won a strategic framework contract to provide consultancy services to the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) for their four-unit new-build project at Barakah in the UAE.
Resarched and written
by World Nuclear News
