Ability of Belarusian nuclear power plant to operate safely checked

MINSK, 24 October (BelTA) – The Belarusian nuclear power plant's ability to operate safely has been checked, BelTA learned from Head of the Nuclear and Radiation Safety Department of the Belarusian Emergencies Ministry (Gosatomnadzor) Olga Lugovskaya.

Olga Lugovskaya said: “On the whole, we've analyzed the readiness of the operating enterprise to perform its functions as a subject that bears full responsibility for the safety of the Belarusian nuclear power plant. As a result of all these considerations Gosatomnadzor prepared a conclusion on whether the license can be granted to the Belarusian nuclear power plant or not.” As a result, the Emergencies Ministry board decided to grant the license for commercial operation of the second unit of the Belarusian nuclear power plant at a session on 24 October.

A lot of code-prescribed work and work by experts had been done before the license was granted. Not only results of the expert evaluation of the safety-substantiating documents had been studied but an evaluation of conformance with the license's requirements and conditions had been arranged (36 various documents and over 1,000 pages).

The licensing of the Belarusian nuclear power plant proceeded stage by stage depending on development stages and progress of the work at the construction site, including commissioning operations by the Russian organizations that have the appropriate licenses. When a license is to be granted, all the stages are evaluated and considered, including the first loading of fuel into the reactor core, subcritical trials of the reactor unit, the fulfillment of physical experiments, reactor power startup, and pilot commercial operation.

Work on the second unit proceeded along this path: the appropriate permissions were granted in succession to greenlight the fulfillment of the substages the commissioning process includes. Every consequent substage took into account results of all the previous ones. The fact was taken into account by the overall conformance evaluation and safety expert evaluation.

The Emergencies Ministry made sure that the limits and conditions of safe operation specified by the nuclear power plant design are confirmed and well-warranted while decisions incorporated into operational documents and accident prevention documents meet safety requirements. The power-generating unit and its safeguards perform their functions.