Doosan Enerbility is picking up the pace for participation in Romanian nuclear power plant and SMR projects.
Doosan Enerbility announced on July 31st that it had obtained accreditation from Romania’s nuclear regulatory body CNCAN* on the design, manufacturing, procurement, construction and services of components used in Romanian nuclear power plants and small modular reactors (SMRs).
* Comisia Nationala pentru Controlul Activitatilor Nucleare (National Commission for the Control of Nuclear Activities)
With the obtainment of this accreditation, Doosan Enerbility plans to actively participate in the refurbishment work of the Cernavoda Nuclear Power Plant Unit 1. Doosan had signed a contract this past May agreeing to manufacture and supply the feeder pipes for the nuclear power plant. The feeder pipe, a key component of pressurized heavy-water reactors(PHWR)*, performs the function of carrying the coolant which is required to control the temperature of the reactor.
* A nuclear reactor that uses heavy water(D2O) as its coolant. In Korea, Wolsong Nuclear Power Plant Units 2, 3 and 4 fall under this category. The heavy water is composed of deuterium (the hydrogen isotope which has a mass double that of ordinary hydrogen) and oxygen. The molecular weight is greater than that of average water.
As the Cernavoda Unit 1 has an operating license that is set to expire in 2026, it is currently undergoing refurbishment to make it operable for an additional 30 years. A consortium consisting of Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP), Canada’s Candu Energy and Italy’s Ansaldo Nucleare is seeking to win the contract for Phase 3 of the refurbishment project.
Doosan Enerbility will also be taking part in a Romanian SMR project that is being led by NuScale Power. The project owner RoPower Nuclear is pursuing the construction of a 462MW SMR power plant on the site of a decommissioned coal-fired power plant in the Doicesti region. On July 24, a contract for Front-End Engineering and Design(FEED) work was signed with Fluor Corporation for the SMR plant.
This past April, the Romanian President Klaus Iohannis had paid a visit to Doosan Enerbility’s Changwon headquarters to view Doosan’s capabilities for manufacturing SMR and large nuclear power plant components. Since 2019, Doosan Enerbility has together with a group of Korean investors been engaged in an equity investment for NuScale Power and has secured rights as the supplier for key components of the plant. All the preparatory work for manufacturing has been completed, such as the manufacturability review of the NuScale Power Module which was finalized in 2021.
“Having obtained this accreditation, we now plan to engage most actively in the Romanian nuclear power plant refurbishment project and SMR project,” said Jongdoo Kim, CEO of Doosan Enerbility’s Nuclear Business Group. “We plan to continuously perform quality management and do our utmost to increase the reliability of our K-nuclear power plant building capabilities.”
▲The CNCAN accreditation received by Doosan Enerbility