Nuclear Energy

Brazil's Eletronuclear has published the responses received from a public consultation on the proposed bidding contract for completing the Angra 3 nuclear power plant.

The public consultation was developed with technical support from the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES) and sought to obtain suggestions for improvements in documents related to Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) services, including the risk matrix and other contractual supplements. Contributions and questions were accepted between 25 March and 17 May this year.

In July, Eletronuclear announced it had extended by 45 days the deadline for publishing responses to the consultation due to "the quantity and nature of the contributions received".

The company has now published the responses to the consultation on its website. "In total, 287 contributions were sent by individuals and legal entities, both national and international," it said.

Eletronuclear noted: "As a next step, the completion of independent studies, being developed by BNDES, is awaited to assess the technical, economic and legal plausibility of the project."

Brazil has two operating reactors - Angra 1 and Angra 2 - which generate about 3% of the country’s electricity. Work on the Angra 3 project - to feature a Siemens/KWU 1405 MW pressurised water reactor - began in 1984 but was suspended two years later, before construction began. The scheme was resurrected in 2006, with first concrete in 2010. However, amid a corruption probe into government contracts, construction of the unit was halted for a second time in 2015, when it was 65% complete.

The project resumed again in November 2022 - at the time of the project's revitalisation, Eletronuclear's aim was to start operations by the end of 2026. However, work halted again in April 2023 after disputes with the municipality of the City of Angra dos Reis over agreements relating to "environmental compensation" payments and also changes relating to the granted planning permission.

Eletronuclear noted that the unit's generating capacity will be sufficient to supply 4.5 million inhabitants. The project, it said, will also create around 7000 direct jobs at its peak, in addition to a much larger number of indirect jobs.