Company wants 20-year life extension for PHWR unit
A call for investors to buy bonds in a fund that will be used for projects at the Atucha nuclear power station in Buenos Aires province, Argentina raised $93m, or 16% more than the target.
Nucleoelectrica Argentina, the state-owned company that operates Argentina’s nuclear facilities, said the NA-SA iV Public Infrastructure Solidarity Financial Trust will be used for the 20-year lifetime extension of the Atucha-1 nuclear plant and the construction of a second dry storage facility for spent fuel elements from the Atucha Site.
The operating licence for Atucha-1, which began commercial operation in 1974, is due to expire in 2024. Nucleoelectrica also plans to increase the unit’s installed capacity from 362 MW to 370 MW. The plant will be taken offline for 30 months so the long-term operation and uprate work can be carried out.
An earlier investment call raised $30m, Nucleoelectrica Argentina said. It said: “The execution of these projects will make it possible to maintain nuclear participation in the Argentine energy matrix and will ensure the generation of clean and reliable energy for one million people for 20 years.”
Argentina has three operating commercial power reactors – a Candu unit at the Embalse nuclear station and two Siemens KWU-designed pressurised heavy water reactors units at Atucha.
In 2020, the three units produced about 7.5% of Argentina’s generated electricity, but the government is aiming to double that.
It is planning to build a third unit at Atucha. Last year Argentina and China said they were working to finalise a contract for construction of a China-supplied HPR1000, or Hualong One, nuclear unit for Atucha-3.
Argentina is also building a domestically designed and developed 25-MW Carem small modular pressurised water reactor unit at the Atucha site.
Construction of the Carem-25 plant began in February 2014. However, the project was suspended in 2019 because of what Buenos Aires called “breaches by contractor companies”.
In November 2021, the government said Nucleoelectrica had signed an agreement with construction company Henisa Sudamericana for the project to go ahead.
