Novovoronezh NPP-2 is being constructed on the “AES-2006” project basis with the VVER-1200 reactor vessel. Today the station is in launching mode. Rosatom plans to launch the first unit as early as next year and proceed to second stage construction immediately. That’s what not so long ago said Sergey Kiriyenko during his visit to the site: “As soon as we start the first unit, we’ll address the Government of the RF to speed up the work on the next two units”, – he said. He also said that the investments into the NVNPP-2 will amount to RUB 66 billion, while the total cost for two units is estimated RUB 220 billion.
Today the construction of key objects is in progress, such as: unit 2 turbine building, central heat supply station, unit pump station, off-site heating overpass and condensate purification plant, normal operation power supply building etc.
Not a long time ago in the reactor building a truss trust was put into its proper location. This equipment is part of reactor pit and meant for durable fixation of the reactor vessel. While in the Central Mechanical Engineering Design Bureau (one of the leading enterprises of the RF, producing pumps for atomic objects) pumping equipment loading for unit 1 of the NVNPP-2 started.
Leningrad NPP-2: Visible Results
Another station being built on the AES-2006 project is Leningrad NPP-2 near Saint-Petersburg. The design lifetime of the plant is 50 years, of the main equipment – 60 years. The Rosenergoatom (Russian nuclear operator) representatives said the date of unit 1 physical launch – 2015. Putting into operation of the unit is scheduled for 2016.
Rosatom’s investments into construction are quite substantial: the LNPP-2 construction cost in 2013 will be RUB 25 billion. That makes the project correspond all safety and efficiency requirements. This recently was confirmed by Russian Federal Service for Ecological, Technical and Atomic Supervision (RosTechNadzor), which granted the license for pile assemblies of units 3 and 4 to Rosenergoatom. The units are to be built for the existing station power substitution. The license expires on April 2018. Let us remind you that the construction permission for units 3 and 4 was granted as early as 2010.
The ultimate preparatory work for the turbine plant assembly is today being conducted on the turbine island of the LNPP-2, after which they will be able to proceed to mounting of turbine generating unit, consisting of turbine, generator and other equipment of secondary coolant circuit. Preparations to high-pressure preheater assembling are also in progress. This equipment
is part of turbine island supporting system and is used for feed water heating.
Rostov NPP: Reactor Arrived
The construction of units 3 and 4 of the Rostov NPP near the city of Volgodonsk is going full pace. The reactor vessel for unit 3 has already arrived to the site. After passing entrance control and the RosTechNadzor permission is granted the assembly will start. The specialists have the task to complete heat mounting as much as possible, lay all cable and develop full-scale commissioning work by 2013.
Meanwhile ZiO-Podolsk (producer of heat-exchange equipment for fuel and energy complex enterprises, part of machine-building division of Rosatom – Atomenergomash) produced and offloaded 6 closed cooling water systems heat-exchangers of generator gas-condensers for the Rostov NPP. Those heat-exchangers are 15 tons equipment about 8 meters long and with inner diameter more than a meter. They are part of closed cooling water system of generator gas-condensers and are elements of normal operation system. This type of equipment is of the highest importance.
Afrikantov Experimantal Design Bureau of Machine Building (part of Atomenergomash) produced and, after several tests, supplied two auxiliary feedware pump units to unit 3 of the plant, now under construction.
Innovative Project
Two other wide-scale constructions – Kursk NPP-2 and Smolensk NPP-2, near the city of Kursk and Desnogorsk respectively, are based on another project – innovative VVER-TOI. This is typical optimized computerized project of two-unit NPP with VVER-type reactor (light water reactor), up-to-date and meeting all nuclear and radiation safety requirements. VVER units are apt to be located without any significant changes in various climatic and seismological zones, from north of Russia to hot tropical areas, from moderate climate regions to zones with hurricanes, tornados and floods.
Exploratory studies are about to start at the Smolensk NPP-2 construction site in June. Two units of the “3+” generation pressurized water reactors with heating power of 3300 MW and electric power 1255 MW, with a 60 years initial operation life are planned to be constructed. “In January 2013 the working plan based on the order of General Director of the Corporation on the beginning of the SNPP-2 project implementation was approved – said Andrey Petrov, General Director of the operating NPP at a construction meeting as early as this spring. The plan fulfillment started in April. The main task is to make the principal contract between design and engineering affiliate of Rosenergoatom Concern and Moscow AEP for realization of a scope of work, including exploratory studies, planned to start in June”. Successful plan implementation is conducted with the help of public support. Regional authorities are extremely interested in the NPP, since atomic energy for the region actually has no alternative. More than 80% installed capacity of all power plants of the region belong to the working NPP.
Kursk NPP-2 is a substitute of the Kursk NPP units dropping out of operation starting from 2021. Preparatory works for the Kursk-2 NPP are going on schedule. Today most of scheduled work is done, says Igor Kruuz, the Kursk NPP-2 Director for Construction. Special attention is paid to design estimate documentation of residential buildings in Kurchatov. Besides they work on project documentation for repair and recovery activities for objects and buildings of the existing base of the Kursk NPP. The base is planned to be used while building substitute units.
