The second power unit of the Kudankulam NPP will be launched the next year, said the head of Rosatom, Sergey Kiriyenko.
The work on the first power unit today is totally completed. “The gap between the first and the second units in technology will be 7 months, that’s what we’ve been discussing with our Indian colleagues. The rest depends on the Indian side, how fast they’ll make their decisions” – summed up Director General. Kudankulam NPP is being constructed upon the agreement signed on November 20, 1988 and its amendment (June 21, 1998). The Customer is Nuclear Power Corporation of India. Russia and India are looking forward to building several more units of the station.
The Government of the RF approved the intergovernmental project with Belarus on nuclear safety cooperation, connected with the NPP being built in the country by Russian specialists.
Russia is going to provide Belarus with all necessary infrastructure for nuclear safety, meeting the IAEA requirements. It also will establish personnel training and development systems. Belarus is going to guarantee, that: “the nuclear and non-nuclear materials and technologies received from Russia won’t be used for atomic weapon production, production of explosives nor will it be used for any other military purpose”, “will be upon the IAEA guarantee” and will be physically protected. The agreement between Rosatom and Belarus is to be signed shortly.
Vnesheconombank approved the credit of $0,5 billion to the Ministry of Finance of Belarus, meant for advanced payments financing of the NPP construction, as Alexander Ivanov, the Deputy Chairman of the State Corporation, said to the PRIME agency.
He reminded, that the credit agreement for $10 billion for the NPP construction in Belarus was signed back in November 2011. The Ministry of Finance of the RF will be represented by Vnesheconombank. At the same time the Ministry of Finance of Belarus wanted to apply for another credit from the bank, meant for advanced payments financing. The sum of the credit will be no more than $ 500 billion, for the term up to 10 years.
The Government of the Russian Federation has charged Rosatom to organize preparation and to hold the high-level international conference “ Nuclear Energy in the 21st Century” in 2013.
The conference is planned to hold in Saint-Petersburg on June 27-29 next year. ROSATOM is to submit proposals on the composition of the conference organizing committee within two months. At the IAEA General Conference in Vienna this September head of ROSATOM Sergey Kiriyenko stated that the participants of the St. Petersburg conference would discuss issues, such as energy and environmental protection, nuclear safety and liability, incentives for the use of innovative technologies.
Dmitry Medvedev, The Prime Minister of the RF made some offers to his colleague, Nikolay Azarov, allowing to activate cooperative work on the power units 3 and 4 construction of the Khmelnitskiy NPP, as said the Ambassador of Russia to Ukraine, Mikhail Zurabov.
The Ukrainian Parliament this September approved the law, permitting projecting and building of power units 3 and 4 of the NPP. Ukraine and Russia made an agreement upon further construction of the power units at the meeting of the PMs in April 2010 in Sochi. The building of the units was stopped in 1990. Today the readiness of unit 3 is 75%, of unit 4 – 28%. The winner of the tender for pile assembly for the second phase construction of the Khmelnitskiy NPP is Atomstroyexport.
December 25, 2012 Rostechnadzor of Russia granted a license for operation term prolongation to power unit 1 of the Smolensk NPP, the engineering data to be declared before December 25, 2022.
The power unit went through a major reconstruction and modernization. In 2011 the unit was thoroughly checked by the IAEA international experts, who confirmed its safety.
