The NPHyCo PROJECT TEAM MEETS WITH THE REPRESENTATIVES OF ENERGY SAFETY GROUP
At the end of June, a regular meeting of the NPHyCo project team members was held with the participation of representatives of Energoatom, Rivne NPP, Khmelnytsky NPP and Atom Project Engineering, as well as specialists from Energy Safety Group LLC, Framatome, Tecnatom, nucleareurope and TUD.
During the meeting, the representatives of Energoatom were updated on the status of the European Commission’s Nuclear Powered Hydrogen Cogeneration Project (NPHyCo). In addition, the working groups discussed the current tasks of the project with focus on the technical and economic areas, as well as licensing.
The meeting participants also considered potential places for locating the hydrogen plant within Rivne NPP site, places of connection to NPP systems, possible ways of providing routing to the hydrogen plant, etc.
Summarizing the results of the meeting, Oleksandr Mazurok, CEO of Energy Safety Group LLC, emphasized that the project is a future-oriented effort and has been actually launched before the full-scale invasion of russia in 2022. “Of course, in the current conditions of electricity shortage in Ukraine, the implementation of the hydrogen-nuclear cogeneration project is out of the question in the short term. However, the project covers not only Ukraine but also many EU countries where such cogeneration is possible in the near future, taking into account our contribution and the future application of the experience and knowledge gained in our country. In addition, Ukraine should be ready for the introduction of such technologies in future, given the large-scale plans for the development of nuclear energy in Ukraine and the world, as well as the fact that the whole world, and the EU in particular, is moving towards the maximum possible production and use of hydrogen for decarbonization, which is impossible without nuclear and renewable energy”, stated Oleksandr Mazurok.
To recap: NPHyCo is an EU research project dedicated to the production of hydrogen from nuclear power, funded by the EU’s Euratom Research and Training Program (2021-2025). The project focuses on the potential for developing large-scale, low-carbon, hydrogen production facilities linked to nuclear power plants. In particular, it assesses the feasibility of producing hydrogen near an existing nuclear power plant, as well as the added value of such a project.
