President Chung Jae-hoon of Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) (Photos: KHNP)

A view of Cernavoda Nuclear Power Units 1 & 2 in Bucharest, Romania.

Under stewardship of President Chung Jae-hoon, who took office in April, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) is accelerating efforts to export nuclear power plants abroad on its own. KHNP, the nation’s sole nuclear power operator, met with President Cosmin Ghita of the state-owned energy producer Nuclearelectrica of Romania in Gyeongju in early July to sound out KHNP’s participation in a plan to build a nuclear power plant in Cernavoda, Romania.

President Ghita came to South Korea to participate in a university summer school tailored towards “world nuclear power next-generation manpower development,” which was jointly hosted by KHNP and World Nuclear University. It took place in Gyeongju from June 26 to July 3.
Romania is building nuclear power units in Cernavoda, about 180 km southeast of Bucharest, the capital of Romania. The Romanian government established a plan to construct five nuclear power units in the area in 1970. The first nuclear power unit broke ground in 1980 and work on nuclear power units 2 to 5 were launched in 1982. In 1991, the construction of nuclear power units 2 to 5 were put on hold in the 1990s due to financial constraints.

Only work on the second nuclear power unit was resumed in 2000 and the unit was dedicated in 2007.
Upon his inauguration, KHNP President Chung set a goal of spearheading a bid to export nuclear power technology abroad.
In the past, KEPCO, which has a 100 percent stake in KHNP, maintained leadership in exporting nuclear power abroad. Now KHNP is trying to accelerate a bid on its own to export nuclear power abroad.

In a meeting with reporters in June, President Chung said KHNP will leave no stone unturned to sound out a possibility of exporting nuclear power to such countries as the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and the Philippines.

KHNP has already worked out plans to export nuclear power abroad, but KHNP has not found it easy to bear fruit since competition to win nuclear power projects is fierce. The Romanian government is also holding negotiations on the Cernavoda Nuclear Power Plant with China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN). KHNP has already joined on bid to construct one or two 1GW nuclear power units in the Czech Republic. KHNP is vying for the project with China, Russia, France, a France-Japan consortium, and the United States.

Study on How to Secure Funds for Dismantling Old Nuclear Power Units

With the decommissioning of Kori Nuclear Power Unit 1 and Wolsong Nuclear Power Unit 1 on the horizon, the nuclear power industry has said that funds for dismantling old nuclear power units should be secured. Korea Energy Economics Institute (KEEI) has been commissioned to study ways of securing such a program.

Currently, KHNP has allocated costs for the dismantling of old nuclear power units as a format of book debts, but the conventional reserve system needs to be overhauled to brace for the full-fledged dismantling of many nuclear power units. slated for the early 2020.
KHNP has appropriated 751.5 billion won per nuclear unit across the board regardless of design longevity and model. As of the end of 2017, 13.002 trillion won has been deposited on book debts.

Unlike the United States in which nuclear power operators are required to deposit costs for the eventual dismantling of nuclear power units in cash, KHNP is taking a format of accumulating them as book debts.
In reality, the cost of decommissioning nuclear power units that can be made available in cash stand at as little as 762 billion won, an equivalent to costs of dismantling a nuclear power unit.

In the wake of the government’s energy paradigm shift calling for weaning nuclear power off the nation, KHNP is forecast to see net profit plunge from 861.8 billion won in 2017 to 12.5 billion won this year.
If KHNP is facing with worse business performances, the nuclear power operator finds it not easy to secure costs of dismantling nuclear power units.