The Polish and American consortium has agreed on the terms for the first nuclear power plant: the EPC contract is to be signed by the end of the year.

The American Westinghouse-Bechtel consortium and the Polish state-owned company Polskie Elektrownie Jądrowe (PEJ) have agreed on the main commercial and legal terms of the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contract for Poland's first nuclear power plant. According to World Nuclear News, final negotiations are expected to be completed by the end of this year.

The agreement reached defined the framework for finalizing the remaining specific elements of the contract and the accompanying documentation for the project being built at the Lubjatovo-Kopalino site in the Hočevo (Pomorje) municipality, in northern Poland.

Site works in full swing and a target for 2036

After the Polish government selected Westinghouse's AP1000 reactor technology at the end of 2022, and in September 2023 signed an 18-month engineering services contract, the project enters its operational phase.

Geological surveys and other preparatory work are currently underway on site; Bechtel has assumed management of the site itself in August, when the first earthworks began, and PEJ submitted an application for a building permit to Poland's national nuclear energy agency (PAA) in March.

According to Marek Voščik, the president of PEJ, the first electricity from this site is expected to flow into the Polish grid in 2036. Dan Lipman, president of the Global Business Initiatives division at Westinghouse, stressed that the project will bring Poland stable supply and economic growth worth billions of zlotys, with thousands of jobs created in both countries.

Comment: Anchoring and industrialization of Poland

The Polish nuclear project at Lubjatovo represents one of the largest energy-infrastructure undertakings in Central and Eastern Europe in the 21st century. The selection of the Westinghouse-Bechtel consortium has cemented the Polish-American strategic alliance, and Western allies view this project as a key pillar of East Europe's energy independence from Russian influence. Bechtel's head of the nuclear sector, Dena Volovar, emphasized that Polish companies and workers during construction will become an integrated part of the global nuclear supply chain, illustrating a model in which nuclear projects not only serve to generate electricity but also spur the strengthening of the domestic high-tech industry and knowledge transfer (the so-called human infrastructure).

Additionally, Poland, whose power system has historically relied on coal and is considered to have the largest carbon footprint, now, with the introduction of gigawatt-class III+ generation reactors, is providing the much-needed baseload energy for decarbonizing its heavy industry without risking grid stability.

S.A.