The AP1000 registered philosophy fits nuclear new build in Central Europe

The World Nuclear Association estimates a steady growth in the number of reactors to be built in the next 20 years. The number of reactors in operation worldwide today is about 440 and will rise within the next couple of decades. It is speculated that Western Europe (including Germany) will have more reactors coming offline than online in the future due to limited lifetime versus plans for new build. In contrast, Eastern Europe (including Russia) is forecasting an increase in their nuclear generating capacity. This includes new market entrants such as Poland as well as expansion projects in the Czech Republic and Hungary; Germany's eastern neighbors. Unfortunately, as Germany and Switzerland phase out nuclear the net capacity in Western Europe is expected to drop even more. In addition to the phase out of nuclear, the federal German government decided to increase the power generation of renewables, focusing on wind and solar. The consequence of simultaneously implementing these new requirements is the creation of high frequency load changes from wind fluctuations or solar peaks without having the nuclear base load to maintain a constant capacity. These decisions on Germany's energy polices has extenuating circumstances which create challenges for local transmission system operators, as well as for neighboring countries' transmission system operators due to the synchronous grid of Continental Europe. This challenge will force the countries connected to Germany by the synchronous grid to place even more importance on their nuclear new build programs in the years to come. Though Germany is phasing out nuclear all together, its neighboring countries in Central and Eastern Europe are continuing with nuclear new build efforts. Therefore, it is still important for the German public to understand the options the nuclear industry have when selecting nuclear reactor vendors. The designs of today are more technically advanced, however the AP1000 registered plant stands out with its passive safety features, robustness, simplification and economic modular construction design. (orig.)