The agreement to build 9 power units in Ukraine is a fairly significant commitment – Westinghouse top manager Joel Eaker

Interview with Joel Eaker, Senior Vice President of APX Projects EMEA at Westinghouse Electric Company, to the Interfax-Ukraine and "Energoreforma" project.

Text – Nina Yavorska

What role does Westinghouse envision for Ukraine in the development of its nuclear fleet in Europe? In other words, how significant is the company’s commitment to Ukraine despite all the current risks?

Ukraine is expected to play a significant role both in Westinghouse’s nuclear development plans and more broadly across Europe and globally. Energoatom and the Ukrainian government signed a memorandum of understanding with the company that envisages the construction of nine potential AP1000 power units. This represents a very significant long-term commitment.

In your opinion, could the deployment of AP1000 reactors in Ukraine become not only an energy project, but also a geopolitical one?

I believe this question would be better addressed to the Ukrainian and U.S. governments, which are in a position to comment on the strategic value of AP1000 projects.

From our side, we remain committed to actively cooperating with Ukraine and helping strengthen its energy independence. We also understand that AP1000 projects will create new high-quality jobs in Ukraine and contribute to the country’s long-term economic development potential.

Let us imagine that the war has ended. How do you see the development of AP1000 projects in Ukraine? What stages, number of units, and implementation timelines do you foresee?

We already have a very strong starting point – a fully completed reactor design in the form of a standardized turnkey project package. In other words, it is a complete documentation package that can be used to build a reactor. It has been fully