2 weeks ago
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The much-anticipated fresh round of extensive feasibility study for the targeted revival of the 620-megawatt Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) will be facing delays due to “compliance concerns” that the governments of the Philippines and South Korea have yet to accomplish.
In an exclusive interview with Manila Bulletin, Energy Undersecretary Sharon S. Garin forthrightly admitted that “we are a little bit delayed because we have yet to do compliance on some matters—not just on their part, but also on our part,” emphasizing that these deliverables generally delve with exchange of documents as well as warranted approval processes from both countries.
The comprehensive feasibility study to be carried out by Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co. Ltd. (KHNP) along with its collaborators in the South Korean team—primarily KEPCO KPS, which is a subsidiary of Korea Electric Power Corp., and Doosan Heavy Industries—was initially targeted to kick off in January this year.
The DOE official thus acknowledged that while the study was initially set for completion by June, delays have already pushed the timeline, “because of the delays, we might finish six months once we begin, and hopefully we can still finish within the year.” There is no new schedule yet on the start of the study.
The outcome of the new feasibility study on BNPP will potentially guide policy leaders and energy officials on the next step for its long-mothballed nuclear power asset— whether there would still be a chance for it to be repowered and what will be the cost of bringing it back to commercial operations.
Past studies by KHNP and KEPCO in 2008 and 2017 confirmed that BNPP could still be revived. Still, since the nuclear landscape has already changed much since then, there is already a pressing need to recalculate the investment cost for its operational reboot.
Earlier estimates put BNPP’s revival cost between $1 billion and $2 billion, but fresh analysis suggests the price tag may already soar even higher.
A Department of Energy (DOE) press statement released in October specified that “should the findings from the first phase determine that proceeding to the next phase is not advisable, KHNP may recommend alternative options—including the construction of a conventional plant or the development of a small modular reactor.”
Garin emphasized that while there is no commitment on the part of the DOE that KHNP will also do the repowering—in case that’s the final result drawn from the study—one pressing issue that the Philippine government would want resolved with finality is the protracted legal battle between KEPCO, KHNP and US firm Westinghouse, the latter being the original reactor supplier to the BNPP facility.
“There are issues between US and South Korea, they have a legal case. The suit is between two private companies, and our agreement with South Korea is government-to-government. But still, it’s our task to make sure that the private companies cooperate, and it should not affect our agreement,” she expounded.
The Energy official conveyed that “we already raised that with the US, we’ve been in contact constantly—even with Westinghouse; and we’re also scheduled to visit South Korea at some point this year.”
In October 2022, Westinghouse filed a case against KEPCO and KHNP, alleging that the South Korean firms violated intellectual property rights related to nuclear reactor designs—specifically concerning the APR1400 reactor, which Westinghouse claimed was derived from its licensed technology.
Westinghouse argued, though, that the South Korean companies had failed to comply with US export control regulations under the Atomic Energy Act, primarily in terms of transferring technical information to other countries.
Around September 2023, the US District Court in Washington, DC, dismissed Westinghouse’s claims, ruling that the disputes were subject to arbitration in South Korea and that Westinghouse lacked the standing to sue directly for the alleged regulatory violations.
The most recent breakthrough on this case was achieved January this year, when Westinghouse, KEPCO and KHNP finally reached a global settlement deal to resolve their intellectual property dispute; and the parties also reportedly agreed to toss out all ongoing legal actions relating to the matter.
