The Technical Collaboration Agreement was announced in Washington on Thursday, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
The deal was signed by the global nuclear company GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH), Poland’s Synthos Green Energy (SGE), America’s Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), and Canada’s Ontario Power Generation (OPG), according to officials.
Poland’s SGE earlier teamed up with the state-run energy giant PKN Orlen to form Orlen Synthos Green Energy (OSGE), a company dedicated to deploying a fleet of GE Hitachi’s BWRX-300 reactors in Poland, reporters were told.
Under Thursday's agreement, TVA, OPG and SGE “will invest in the development of the BWRX-300 standard design and detailed design for key components,” according to a statement by the parties.
GE Hitachi has estimated that the standard design development will cost around USD 400 million, and “each contributor has agreed to fund a portion of GEH’s overall cost.”
“The long-term goal is for the BWRX-300 design to be licensed and deployed in Canada, the U.S., Poland and beyond,” the companies said.
'Cheap, zero-emission, nuclear-generated energy'
Orlen’s CEO Daniel Obajtek hailed Thursday’s deal as “a very important agreement,” thanks to which “the Orlen Group will supply its customers with cheap, zero-emission, nuclear-generated energy already in this decade.”
'Long-term strategic vision of our alliance with the U.S. and Canada'
Poland's ambassador to the United States, Marek Magierowski, who was present when the agreement was signed, also underlined its importance, saying it was “not only about our energy transformation.”
Magierowski stated: “It’s also about the long-term strategic vision of our alliance with the U.S. and Canada.”
SGE’s CEO Rafał Kasprów said his company signed the deal "because GE Hitachi's state-of-the-art modular technology is simply ideal for decarbonizing energy and heat production in Poland, and also for our other zero emission projects in the United Kingdom and throughout Central Europe."
Kasprów added that, besides Poland, the Orlen Synthos Green Energy joint venture would build small modular nuclear reactors in Finland, Sweden, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary, to ensure the “energy security of Central and Eastern Europe,” public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported.
In February last year, Polish state-run copper and silver producer KGHM signed an agreement with US firm NuScale Power to bring small modular reactors to Poland, according to the PAP news agency.
In June 2022, Polish state-owned energy firm Enea signed a letter of intent for small modular reactors with US developer Last Energy, news outlets reported.
(pm/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP, Orlen, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy