To Participate in Global AP1000 Plant Opportunities

Hyundai Engineering and Construction has signed a strategic agreement with Westinghouse Electric Co. to jointly pursue global AP1000 nuclear plant opportunities.

Hyundai Engineering and Construction (Hyundai E&C) signed a strategic agreement with Westinghouse Electric Co. on May 24 to jointly participate in global AP1000 nuclear plant opportunities.

The signing ceremony at Hyundai E&C headquarters was led by Yoon Young-joon, president and CEO of Hyundai E&C, and David Durham, president of Westinghouse Energy Systems, along with officials from both companies.

Yoon said, "The strategic cooperation agreement enables Hyundai E&C to have an opportunity to demonstrate our exceptional engineering, procurement and construction capabilities applied to Westinghouse's AP1000 plant. Also, Hyundai’s presence in the green energy sector is expected to grow by jointly participating in the global conventional nuclear power plant projects led by Westinghouse.”

"Westinghouse’s proven AP1000 technology leads the industry in safety and operational performance; we look forward to collaborating with Hyundai E&C, a global EPC leader, on future AP1000 plant projects to jointly help countries achieve their decarbonization and energy security objectives," Durham said.

The AP1000 reactor offers the highest operability within the nuclear industry and continues to set industry records in the ease and duration of commissioning and refueling outages, as well as outstanding availability factors. Additionally, the AP1000 plant has unique, fully passive safety features, making it the safest nuclear reactor in the world. This advanced Generation III+ technology is the result of over 60 years of Westinghouse’s successful design and operation of nuclear power plants.

Established in 1886, Westinghouse is an American nuclear power generation giant, providing nuclear reactors and engineering for more than 50 percent of the nuclear power plants around the world. The AP1000 model is an advanced pressurized light reactor loaded with a third-generation reactor technology that has been licensed in several countries in the United States, Europe and Asia.

Previously, Hyundai E&C entered the U.S. nuclear power plant decommissioning market by signing a project management (PM) contract for the decommissioning of the closed Indian Point Energy Center in New York. It also signed an agreement with Holtec International to promoted the small modular reactor (SMR) business.

Hyundai Engineering, a sister company of Hyundai E&C, recently upgraded the Nuclear Power Business Team to the Nuclear Power Business Office and established a separate specialized organization in charge of the nuclear power business. Through reorganization, it will promote SMRs and hydrogen production, nuclear dismantlement and nuclear cycles, facilities for research reactors and nuclear fuel production. Then, it will expand its business areas to secure its own SMR technology.

The company also signed an equity investment contract worth 30 billion won with USNC, a US nuclear company, in January 2022 and secured exclusive rights to the global EPC business for micro modular reactors (MMR). It  began to build an MMR demonstration plant on the premises of Chalk River Laboratories in northeast of Toronto, Canada.

Copyright © BusinessKorea. Prohibited from unauthorized reproduction and redistribution