The Euratom NPHyCo Project: Conceptualization, Technical Work Plan, and Current Status

This manuscript provides an overview of the goals, technical content, and close-to-final status of the Euratom NPHyCo project. NPHyCo stands for Nuclear Powered Hydrogen Cogeneration, and its ultimate goal is the design and preparation of a large-scale (MW-range) hydrogen cogeneration facility coupled to a nuclear power plant (NPP), which can become operational in a short-term horizon. The project analyses the existing economic, technical, safety and regulatory considerations for NPP owners to produce nuclear hydrogen through several cases of study applied to selected NPP sites and European markets. The manuscript summarizes the main outcomes as of December 2024 regarding the integration scenarios of a hydrogen production plant (HPP) into a NPP site, based on the coupling configuration and sharing of balance-ofplant components between facilities. Given the interest and degree of cooperation of the Ukrainian state operator Energoatom, most of the technical calculations are based on the specifications of Rivne and Khmelnytskyi NPPs,both powered with water-water energy reactor (VVER) technology.The project has delineated a HPP configuration with an overall capacity of 45 MW. The safety assessmentrelies on deterministic and probabilistic methodologies, which are applied through numerical simulation tools.The results are mostly based on example scenarios. However, they allow to derive general conclusions. Deterministiccalculations are applied to a hydrogen plant either in a container or building solution, to determine theoptimal configuration and required safety measures upon an intended release of hydrogen and subsequentignition, leading to a fire or explosion. The hazards of the worst-case scenario in the HPP towards safety-relatedNPP structures are evaluated based on onsite and offsite HPP integration at Rivne NPP, with the correspondingstructural fragility criterion.

DIAZ PESCADOR Eduard;  VIEBACH Marco;  LIPPMANN Wolfgang;  GAMALEJA Florian;  HURTADO Antonio;  MAZUROK Oleksandr;  HERRERO-MORIANA Cecilia;  GLÜCKLER Martin;  CREVON Stéphanie;  LUKASOVA Pavla;  FUETTERER Michael;  HIJLKEMA Mathijs;  FIRPO Gabriele;  JOHNSON Jessica;  HEITSCH Clemens; 

2024-10-28

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD

JRC139869

1878-4224 (online),   

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149197025001295?via%3Dihub,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC139869,   

10.1016/j.pnucene.2025.105731 (online),