Belarusian nuclear power plant compliance with post-Fukushima safety requirements underlined

Aleksei Likhachev said: “The Republic of Belarus now has a unit that has been built by leveraging cutting-edge Generation III+ technologies. The viability of this technology has already been confirmed by the operation of analogous units in Russia. They meet all the post-Fukushima safety requirements. All the International Atomic Energy Agency missions have recognized their reliability. It is very important for us that we've built the first foreign VVER-1200 unit in the Republic of Belarus, a brotherly country for us.”

The loading of nuclear fuel into the reactor of the first unit of the Belarusian nuclear power plant began on 7 August. Rosatom's engineering division is the general designer and the general contractor in the project for building the Belarusian nuclear power plant.

The first fuel rod array with fresh nuclear fuel has already been placed inside the nuclear reactor core. As many as 163 fuel rod arrays will be successively placed inside the reactor core by the end of the month.

Once fuel is loaded, the reactor will have to reach the minimal controlled operation level (1% of the output) and the relevant tests will be done. The reactor will be treated as a nuclear energy installation once it happens. After reliability and safety of operation of the unit within design parameters are verified, the reactor power startup stage will begin, during which the unit will be connected to the power grid.

The first unit of the Belarusian nuclear power plant is the first unit of the latest Generation III+ that has been built using Russian technologies abroad. At present three units of the type are used in Russia: two at the Novovoronezh nuclear power plant and one unit at the Leningrad nuclear power plant. Apart from that, the construction of the fourth Russian Generation III+ unit (the sixth unit of the Leningrad nuclear power plant) was finished in July and startup operations began.

The Belarusian nuclear power plant is being built near Ostrovets, Grodno Oblast using the Russian design AES-2006 featuring two VVER-1200 reactors with the total output capacity of 2,400MW. Rosatom's engineering division is the general contractor. Generation III+ reactor units boast improved technical and economic parameters.