Belarusian nuclear power plant – Rosatom Exemplary Project
Subscribe to the newsletter
Select the region you are interested in and enter your e-mail
Subscribe
#78March 2015

Belarusian nuclear power plant – Rosatom Exemplary Project

back to contents

The Belarusian nuclear power plant of AES-2006 design is located 18 km from Ostrovets in Grodno Region. It will consist of two power units with a total rating capacity of 2400 MW. The general designer and prime contractor is NIAEP – ASE United Company. The first unit is scheduled for commissioning in 2018, and the second one in 2020.

Russian President Vladimir Putin consider the Belarusian nuclear power an exemplary project, it contributes that Russia and Belarus have come close to creating common innovation space. “The implementation of our largest investment project, construction of the Belarusian nuclear power plant, is proceeding according to schedule. Specialists consider the construction of the Belarusian nuclear power plant exemplary,” Mr Putin noted at the meeting of the Supreme State Council of the Union State of Russia and Belarus.

Summary and Plans
The contracts with the Russian companies for the construction of the Belarusian nuclear power plant in 2014 amounted to $494.5 million, which was above the expected level by 5%, as the spokesperson of the Ministry of Energy of Belarus Zhanna Zenkevich stated.

“In 2014, the main construction works were proceeded according to the schedule at the Belarusian NPP site,” the spokesperson noted. Sixty-eight facilities such as reactor building, turbine building and evaporative cooling tower for the first and second power units were under construction. Nearly 40 thousand tons of reinforcement and 290 thousand cubic meters of concrete were used.

Since the beginning of construction, 32.9% of reinforcement and 31.7% of concrete have been used and 61% of the equipment have been contracted for the Belarusian nuclear power plant. According to the Ministry of Energy, the number of construction workers in 2014 was 3,500. The share of the Belarusian construction companies engaged in the construction of a nuclear power plant exceeded 80%.

Ms Zenkevich also noted that the scope of erection of civil works and structures at the Belarusian nuclear power plant in 2015 will be increased by 1.6 times. “There will be continued the erection of major buildings and structures of units 1 and 2, including the reactor building, turbine building, evaporative cooling tower, as well as training centre, fire station,” the spokesperson asserted. In 2015, 50 thousand tons of reinforcement and 360 thousand cubic meters of concrete will be erected.

As Ms Zenkevich said that $570 million would be contracted in 2015 for the construction of the Belarusian NPP out of the state export credit of the Russian Federation.

As Scheduled
On 25 February 2015, the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of Belarus ratified the Protocol on amendment into the agreement between the governments of Belarus and Russia on cooperation in the construction of nuclear power plant on the territory of Belarus dated 15 March 2011. The document was signed in Moscow on 23 December 2014. Several media interpreted this change of commissioning date. However, Minister of Energy of Belarus Vladimir Potupchik has recently disapproved this information.

“The deadlines are defined by the presidential decree. This amendment is need to align the standards of intergovernmental agreement between Belarus and Russia on the construction of a nuclear power plant with the decisions that have already been taken. And that what we have already done,” Mr Potupchik told. Besides, he added that a number of technical issues had been settled.

Amendments to the agreement made it possible to exchange information necessary for the development of design documentation and design of a physical protection system (PPS), as well as to ensure quality and timely execution of works on PPS design using the Russian state export credit allocated for the construction of the Belarusian NPP.

The cooperation between Russia and Belarus in the energy sector is much broader than the joint construction of nuclear power plant. As such, Belarus imports 2.5 billion kWh of power from Russia, as Mr Patupchyk stated. “Belarus imports all power from Russia. We abandoned the purchase of electricity from Ukraine. Actually it was not us who refused. Ukraine informed us that it did not have technical capabilities to supply electricity,” the minister told.