South Korea's state-owned Korea Hydro Nuclear Power (KHNP) said it had submitted a formal offer to build Poland's first nuclear power plant. Poland plans to build nuclear power plants to reduce its carbon emissions and gradually phase out coal and is seeking a partner to build 6-9GWe of nuclear capacity and provide 49% equity financing for the project.
The USA and France have also expressed interest in the project. In July 2021, Westinghouse and US partner Bechtel agreed to provide Poland’s Polskie Elektrownie Jadrowe (PEJ) with a front-end engineering and design study for the deployment of two three-unit nuclear plants. In October 2021, France’s EDF submitted a preliminary offer to the Polish government for the construction of four to six EPR reactors at two or three different locations in Poland.
KHNP CEO Jeong Jae-hoon has now presented an offer to Adam Guibourge-Czetwertynski, Poland's undersecretary of state at the Polish Ministry of Climate and Environment, to build six reactors with a combined capacity of 8.4GWe, with the first to be operational in 2033. "The offer is supported by the Korean government and includes a complex financing plan by KHNP and institutions of the Korean government," the company said in a statement. It gave no further details.
Last November, in a meeting in Poland with Piotr Naimski, Plenipotentiary of Strategic Energy Infrastructure, South Korean Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Moon Seung-wook and KHNP’s Jeong argued that Korea is the best partner for the new nuclear power plant project in Poland. KHNP pointed to the construction of the Barakah NPP in the United Arab Emirates, for which it supplied four 1,345MWe APR-1400 plants. “South Korea will offer the Polish side a similar project, on preferential terms,” the company said.
KHNP is promoting nuclear power plant exports to several countries in addition to Poland. In November 2021, it submitted a security answer document and a bid for the nuclear power plant project in the Czech Republic. It is also in talks for participation in a project in Egypt, which calls for construction of four nuclear power plants in El Dava region. Tender results will be announced in 2023 for the Polish Project and in 2024 for the Czech project, and as early as the first half of 2022 for the Egyptian project. In addition, KHNP’s participation in the tritium removal facility (TRF) supply project for Romania’s Cernavoda NPP is expected to be announced in 2022.
South Korea's first nuclear export project was the Barakah NPP in the UAE which was completed late last year.
