Westinghouse Electric Company has been awarded a contract by the National Nuclear Energy Generating Company of Ukraine (NNEGC Energoatom) to provide a passive hydrogen control system for VVER Units 1 and 2 at the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine.

The passive hydrogen-control system is designed to provide additional measures for ensuring containment integrity in the unlikely event of both a design-basis accident and beyond-design-basis accident.

Westinghouse has been increasingly providing VVER-type reactors (440/213 and 1000 models) around Europe with a range of products and services to further enhance plant safety in order to fulfill internationally accepted standards. The engineering, design, supply and installation of the passive safety system is scheduled to be completed by January 2016.

"Given our proven experience in the VVER-type reactor market, Westinghouse is well placed in Europe to provide Energoatom with innovative safety systems," said Yves Brachet, Westinghouse president, Europe, Middle East and Africa.

"More generally, this contract reflects the ongoing commitment of Westinghouse to provide the commercial nuclear power industry with products and services that further improve plant safety and reduce the probability of severe accidents."

The Westinghouse Passive Autocatalytic Recombiner solution, named NIS-PAR, helps to control and mitigate the effects of hydrogen generation under severe accident conditions and includes completely passive equipment, little-to-zero maintenance costs, easy installation, ability to test multiple cartridges thus shortening associated work during outages, and robustness with respect to atmospheric conditions or seismic loads.

As a part of post-Fukushima safety enhancements efforts, Westinghouse has supplied NIS-PARs to various power plants around the world, including Slovenia's Krsko Slovenia, Brazil's Angra, Spain's Vandellos and Japan's Kashiwasaki Kariwa plants.