25.07.2018  THE COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT OF Rosenergoatom

The world’s first floating power unit Akademik Lomonosov, designed for energy supply to Chukotka, has started loading nuclear fuel into its reactors

On 25 July, 2018, the world's only floating nuclear power unit (FNPU) Akademik Lomonosov located at the site of Atomflot FSUE (Rosatom’s subsidiary) in Murmansk, started loading nuclear fuel into the reactors. The readiness to start the loading activity was confirmed by Rostekhnadzor the day before.

Thus, one of the key stages of the current preparation of the floating nuclear power unit for the start of operation at its main site in Pevek (Chukotka Autonomous Okrug) – where it gradually replaces Bilibino NPP and Chaunskaya TPP and becoming the basis of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug energy system – has successfully begun.

Vitaliy Trutnev, the Head of the Directorate on Construction and Operation of the Floating Nuclear Power Plant (FNPP), noted, “This spring we have successfully towed a nuclear unit without fuel from St. Petersburg to Murmansk; and here we are finishing the technological operations. Today, the specialists have started one of the most important tasks – the gradual loading of nuclear fuel into the reactor units, starting with No 1, and then No 2. The next stages that are to be implemented by the end of the year will be the physical launch of the reactors and the beginning of complex mooring tests; we’ll start to implement them after obtaining the relevant Rostekhnadzor permits.”

In his turn, the Deputy Head of the Directorate on Construction and Operation of the Floating Nuclear Power Plant Dmitriy Alekseenko stressed that the main requirement for the FNPU launch in Murmansk was security. “Atomflot base possesses all the necessary infrastructure, specialists and competencies both for loading the nuclear fuel and for physically launching the reactors”, he said.

In 2019, the FNPU will be towed to the seaport of Pevek. Currently, all necessary construction works are underway there to create shore infrastructure, including a complex of buildings, hydraulic structures and a coastal platform, that are designed to ensure safe mooring for the power unit and acceptance of its power bridge at the spot of electrical communications and energy exchange with the shore. The power unit will become the main part of the northernmost and world’s only FNPP, and will provide Chukotka with electric power, replacing outdated units. The towing is planned to be carried out in the next year.

The floating nuclear power unit (FPU) (FPU) “Akademik Lomonosov” of project 20870 is the main project of the series of mobile transportable power units of low power. It is designed to work as a part of the Floating Nuclear Thermal Power Plant (FNPP) and is of a new class of power sources on the basis of Russian technologies of nuclear shipbuilding.

The nuclear power plant has two KLT-40S reactor units that can generate up to 70 MW of electric energy and 50 Gcal/hr of heat energy during its normal operation. This is enough to keep the activity of the town populated with 100,000 people. The FPU is the unique and the world’s first project of the mobile transportable power unit of low power. It is designed for the operation at the areas of the Extreme North and the Russian Far East. Its main task is to provide the remote industrial plants, port cities, as well as the offshore gas and oil platforms with electric energy. The FNPP is designed with the great margin of safety that exceeds all possible threats and makes nuclear reactors invincible for tsunamis and other natural disasters. In addition, the nuclear processes at the floating power unit meet all requirements of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and do not pose any threat to the environment.

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