President Jung Jae-hoon of Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co. and Kinectrics President David Harris pose after they struck an MOU on nuclear decommissioning at the KHNP main office in Gyeongju last August. (Photo: KHNP)

Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co. (KHNP) will dispatch decommissioning personnel to Canadian sites to dismantle nuclear power plants. It is the first time Korea will send nuclear power decommissioning engineers and technology support overseas.

KHNP plans to develop a new business model involving technology support abroad and the dispatching of decommissioning manpower. Figures released by KHNP showed that the value of the global nuclear decommissioning market is estimated at 549 trillion won.

KHNP said on April 7 that the power company had already struck a contract with Kinectrics, a Canadian nuclear power engineering company, to dispatch Korean engineers to Canadian nuclear power decommissioning sites.

Kinectrics is said to have highly evaluated the technology KHNP employed to replace the pressure tubes at Wolsong Nuclear Power Unit 1 and improve its facilities, and the deal came at the request of KHNP, which wanted to participate in nuclear power decommissioning process projects, similar to the Korean power company’s one.

Five nuclear power decommissioning experts - four officials from KHNP and one from its cooperative company - will be hired for one year to carry out management of decommissioning waste and process project development for the decommissioning of pressurized heavy water (Candu) reactors at the Bruce, Darlington and Pickering nuclear power plants.

With the signing of the deal, KHNP expects to secure an upper hand on orders to perform similar projects and expand its overseas presence in the global nuclear power decommissioning market. Expected revenues and detailed terms of the deal would not be divulged in consideration of future order outlooks, however.

KHNP predicts that the global nuclear power decommissioning market will achieve a dramatic growth amid global new/renewal energy paradigm shift. Currently, 450 nuclear power units are in operation in 34 countries, and out of the total, 157 units are ordered closed permanently, awaiting decommissioning.

As a result, the global nuclear power decommissioning market is forecast to surge to 123 trillion won in 2030 and 204 trillion won in 2051.

The figure is expected to surge to 222 trillion won after 2051. The cumulative market value will stand at a huge 549 trillion won.

KHNP Spearheads New/Renewable Energy Initiative

Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co. (KHNP) plans to expand its new and renewable energy production facility capacity to 7.6GW by 2030. The figure will bring KHNP’s new and renewable production capacity by that year to 8.4GW.

KHNP is the nation’s largest power generation company. It is stepping on the gas to implement new/renewable energy projects under a vision of realizing “green energy” as a social value.

To this end, KHNP is accelerating efforts to develop and implement KHNP-type business models with a focus on projects with less environmental damage and social conflict, using inputs favored by neighborhood residents and stakeholders.

KHNP is playing a leading part in the implementation of the Saemangeum Photovoltaic Power Project.

The power company completed a basic design of water photovoltaic power projects with a combined capacity of 2.1GW and obtained a green light on the power generation of the project, and an environment impact evaluation of the project is under way.

KHNP aims to raise the portion of renewable energy out of its total power generation to 20 percent by 2030 in accordance with the government’s “Renewable Energy 2030 Policy” initiative.

KHNP’s representative new/renewable energy priority sector is photovoltaic power.

The power company dedicated photovoltaic power production facilities with a combined capacity of 13.3MW last year, bringing to 41.3MW KHNP’s total photovoltaic power generation capacity.

Out of the total, 6MW was secured in a joint photovoltaic power project involving KHNP and Hyundai Motor Co.