The White House announced that South Korea will invest $200 billion in U.S. energy projects, part of a deal under which Korea will avoid enormous tariffs. The deal includes eight large nuclear reactors: six of them Westinghouse AP1000s and two Korean APR-1400s.
How this fits in with a previous settlement between Westinghouse and the Korean reactor builders is not immediately clear, but it gives Korea a toehold in a U.S. market. The market would be huge if the U.S. achieves its goal of quadrupling nuclear energy output by mid-century.
Thus, the relationship between the American and Korean reactor builders, previously convoluted and obscure, remains uncertain.
The Korea Electric Power Corporation and a subsidiary, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power, known as KHNP, sell the Advanced Power Reactor-1400, a pressurized water reactor with two steam generators. The APR-1400 borrows from the design of the Combustion Engineering System 80+ reactor. Arizona Public Service’s Palo Verde plant, finished in the late 1980s, uses the same design. Combustion Engineering’s nuclear business was bought by Westinghouse in 2000.
The APR-1400 design was used by South Korea at the Barakah plant in the United Arab Emirates, and construction there set an international benchmark. Work started in July 2012, and the last of four units came online in September 2024. The speed of construction has made KHNP sought after for its project management skills.
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