The plant is to be built in Jordan’s Amra region, near the city of Zarqa, says Khaled Toukan, the construction is planned to be two-phased. The first stage (two years) will be taken by detailed research, followed by signing a contract for construction start. The Russian side can finance 49% of work. Jordanian Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Mohamed Hamed called the NPP construction one of the country’s priorities, since 97% of electric power is now imported. “Taking into consideration the growing need of energy, interruptions in deliveries of natural gas and energy carrier costs increase, we are really in need of the station as soon as possible”, – said Hamed.
Increased safety
The plant will consist of two AES-92 versions of the VVER-1000 light-water reactor type, with a power production capacity of 1,000 MW each. The project is a part of state program “Green energetics”, which takes into consideration the domestic experience of creating and operating the previous type reactor system (B-320) at the Zaporozhskaya, Balakovskaya, South-Ukraine and Kalinin NPPs and the latest achievements in NPP design and operation. The accepted technology makes AES-92 the third generation nuclear station according to international classification, which means increased safety standards in modern light water reactors. Working on the project, the designers paid special attention to reducing potential human factor as much as possible, since, when working on a reactor, the principles of correlation between a human and the machine should be taken into special consideration, which means, the construction itself should bear protection against potential mistakes of its operator. That’s exactly what all technical innovations of the upgraded AES-92 are aimed at.
This concept was implemented in two directions passive safety systems (working almost without supply of energy from outside, not needing operator and two-purposed active safety systems, which reduces possibility of unrevealed failures. To prevent uncontrolled chain reaction the reactor has special control rods made of neutron-absorbing materials. Their introduction into the active zone stops nuclear reaction immediately. VVER-1000 reactor of the AES-92 project has increased amount of the rods. The efficient alarm system shuts the reactor down completely in case of emergency and, unlike previous generations, keeps it shut without boron solutions. However, the AES-92 project suggest additional passive emergency safety system (fast introduction of boron solution), able to substitute the rod system.
The main project advantage is that the main safety functions are performed independently from each other, by two different systems. Double containment prevents harmful substances leakage in case of emergency and protects the reactor from outside dangers, like explosion wave or plane crash. All this together with the systems’ efficiency, failure rate and human factor reduction increases the NPP safety. The high quality of Russian project was acknowledged also by foreign clients, who had chosen it for building plants in India (Kudankulam) and Iran (Bushehr) NPPs.
Profit in Package
The system planned to be used at the Jordanian NPP is BOO (build-own-operate), first time used by Rosatom in Turkey for the Akkuyu NPP (four power units with total capacity of about 4,8 GW). In the Finnish Hanhikivi project the Russian company performs as a share-holder, planning to obtain 34% of shares.
The BOO-scheme suggests a long-term contract with the country, on which territory a plant is built. Rosatom is in charge of design, construction, maintenance and operation of the plant. It is quite profitable for nuclear energy newcomers, since Rosatom offers a complex solution financing, credit assistance, national legal base development assistance, personnel training, guaranteed provision of nuclear fuel, RW management. No one else on the world market has such a complex offer.
Russian State Corporation also has its profit, since one of key-elements of the BOO-scheme is pay-back system. Thus, the Akkuyu project agreement has a fixed price for selling 70% of energy from the first two units and 30% from units 3 and 4. The Finnish project suggests that, should Rosatom be approved to take part, the Corporation will have the right to sell energy at Scandinavian wholesale energy market. Kirill Komarov, Rosatom’s Deputy General Director for Development and International Business, says, that “it is very profitable in terms of politics and economics, since Russia grows its part at the international market of high-technology services and annual revenues from energy selling are billions of dollars.
“We increase the volume of production and service demand of Russian energy machine-building complex, which means the increase of local taxes and job offers. On the one hand, we offer localization and participation of local construction companies in construction works, on the other – a big technological equipment order for Russian industry” – notes Mr. Komarov.
