On June 6, 2012 a team of journalists from Hungary, Great Britain, USA and the Czech Republic made a familiarization tour to Novovoronezh NPP and Novovoronezh II.



Currently, various projects are realized on Novovoronezh site: it is decommissioning of Units 1 and 2; last year Unit 5 had overhaul-period renewal, on the turn there is an overhaul-period renewal of Units 3 and 4. In addition, works on NvNPP II construction with the use of the most modern VVER-1200 model reactors are underway.

ThatХs why the primary objective of the international journalists was studying of the positive practice of construction and operation of NPPs and its further sharing.

During the visit, the foreign guests visited the upgraded Power Unit 5 of NvNPP, full scale simulator of the educational and training point and the construction site of Novovoronezh II.

At the operating plant and at the plant under construction, the managers and specialists responded the questions from the foreign mass media related to the principles of construction and operation of the plant of the Russian design, which nowadays is in great demand in the world, as well as more specific topics.

At the operating plant, the journalistsХ attention, in particular, was drawn by the experience of modernization of Unit 5, as a result of which it was substantially equal to the safety level of power units of the third generation, as well as the system of the response personnel training, in particular, training on the newest full-scale simulator.

Of great interest was the information on carrying out stress tests at the plant after the accident at Fukushima NPP, as well as integrated emergency response exercises, which showed preparedness of the staff to manage the processes of the accident elimination. The guests were presented a disc with a video about the passed IERE.

At the site of Nv NPP II, Director of the plant under construction, Sergey Petrov, and Chief Inspector of Novovoronezh branch of the Direction of NPP under construction of JSC Atomenergoproyekt, Vladimir Zarubayev, in details informed the representatives of foreign mass media on the construction progress, peculiarities and uniqueness of the project ТNPP-2006У.

The journalists got very interested in the active and passive safety system of the new plant, Тmelt trapУ, etc. They examined everything: from the reactor vessel (in hangar), to the mounted equipment Р separators, reheaters, high-pressure preheaters, installation of cooling towers.

 A ТMetropolУ and ТNepszabadsagУ newspaper (Hungary) observer, Zsuzsanna Szentgyorgyi, and a journalist of the Czech television, Pavel Vondra, shared their opinions. ТIndeed this is a great development comparing to reactors and units constructed before, and IХm very glad that I could see the process of construction here,У the Hungarian journalist noted.

 ТMy TV has set me a task to see how a nuclear power plant is constructed. The impressions I have, of course, are great. Construction and generation has stepped far forward. I have just known from your engineers that VVER technology is one of the cleanest. And as for the safety, there are data that show that VVER-1200 is one of the safest,У Pavel Vondra stressed.

Novovoronezh NPP is a branch of Rosenergoatom Concern OJSC. The plant is situated on the bank of the Don river at 42 km south of Voronezh. It is the first NPP in Russia, which operates reactors of VVER-type (Vessel type Pressurized Water Reactor with light water under pressure). Each of the five plant reactors are prime Р a prototype of serial power reactors: No.1 power unit operates on VVER-210-type reactor, No.2 power unit Р VVER-365, No.3,4 power units Р VVER-440, No.5 power unit Р VVER-1000. 

The radiation background in the area of the plant and the adjacent territory corresponds to the level of power unitsХ normal operation and does not exceed the natural environmental values.

Online data on the radiation environment near nuclear power plants in Russia and other nuclear facilities are provided on website www.russianatom.ru