History of the Concern

The idea to establish a Open Joint Stock Company "Concern for Production of Electric and Thermal Energy at Nuclear Power Plants"(Rosenergoatom Concern FSUE, before corporization) emerged in the early 1990, when the popular distrust of nuclear energy and the scarcity of funds were looming large over the future of the industry.

That idea was not something invented or imposed, it was the "child" of a whole number of people - real devotees of nuclear energy: Yevgeny Ignatenko, Boris Antonov, Nikolay Odarchenko, Erik Pozdyshev. At first, in 1991, they formed a kind of association, which had minimum possible personnel and lived on the fees paid by its member-NPPs. Then, the Concern received the status of operating organization. On September 7, 1992, President of Russia Boris Yeltsin signed a decree "On the Operating Organization of the Nuclear Power Plants of the Russian Federation." Eight NPPs united into a "Rosenergoatom" Concern so as to jointly ensure the safety operation of their units and the development of the industry.

Today, we can already see that the hopes that the Concern would be able to bring the nuclear power industry out of the deadlock have mostly come true. The first step out was the launch of the 4 ^th unit of Balakovo NPP in 1993 – a project that had been constantly delayed for political and economic reasons since 1989.

In the past years "Roseneroatom" has appeared as a living and growing organism, a constantly improving and developing company of devoted and professional people. During the hard years of economic crisis, it was nuclear energy that anchored the national power supply system and kept it from an overturn. Even more, during that period the Russian NPPs significantly improved their safety conditions, particularly, in terms of prevention of equipment failures and automatic stoppages.

In the mid 1990s "Rosenergoatom" began concentrating funds for nuclear energy development. As a result, on Dec 25, 2001, it launched Volgodonsk (Rostov) NPP – the 10 ^th nuclear power plant of Russia - and began modernizing the existing power units and prolonging the lives of the units of the first generation.

In 2002 the Government of the Russian Federation decreed to restructure "Rosenergoatom" Concern into United Generating Company with a view to enhance the efficiency of the nuclear power industry.

The restructuring helped to solve a number of urgent problems. Particularly, "Rosenergoatom" got an opportunity to sell electricity to the Federal Wholesale Market at a consolidated tariff, fixed by the Federal Energy Commission. The cash flow in the sphere was centralized for more effective distribution. The property of the nuclear power plants was placed under the ownership of the Concern. As a result, the property relations in the nuclear power industry had been harmonized with the legislation that was in force at that moment.

One of the key results of the Concern’s activities is that both the society and the government have changed their attitude towards nuclear energy. For the first time since the 1990s the Russian Government has set a specific task to the industry: to raise the share of nuclear energy in the country’s total energy balance from 16%, at present, to 25% in 2030; and has provided the industry with strong support: in 2006 the State Duma and the President of the Russian Federation approved a federal target program for the development of the nuclear power complex of Russia in 2007-2010 and –2015 and provided its with a big financing. The Government has given the green light to the completion of the constructions "frozen" during the years of stagnation and to the practical implementation of the project of BN-800 (a fast breeder reactor of new generation supposed to serve as a basis for the development of closed fuel cycle technologies) and the project of floating NPP (a low-capacity plant meant for the regions where "big" power engineering is impossible).

Still, the biggest achievement of the Concern is the lack of any significant incidents at its NPPs throughout their operation. Highly-qualified personnel and constant technical improvement and safety enhancement are absolute guarantees against uncontrolled situations in the sphere.

The effective work of the Concern in the past years has proved the efficiency, stability and high competitiveness of the Russian nuclear power industry.