19.12.2019  COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT OF ROSENERGOATOM

The floating nuclear power plant has delivered its first electric power into the Chukotka grid

On December 19, 2019, at 11 am (Moscow time), the floating nuclear power plant located in Pevek (FNPP, a project by the Rosatom State Corporation) delivered its first electric power into the isolated network of the Chauny-Bilibino hub in the Chukotka Autonomous Region.

This turned out to be an important day for Pevek residents – the power start-up of the FNPP was accompanied by lighting up the Christmas tree.

Previously, the Far Eastern department commission of the Federal Service for Ecological, Technological and Nuclear Supervision (Rostekhnadzor) issued a clearance for operation to the Akademik Lomonosov power barge, which allows connecting it to the northern electric networks of AO Chukotenergo.

Andrey Petrov, the CEO of the Rosenergoatom Joint-Stock Company, gave the following comment on this crucial event in the history of the global nuclear power industry: ‘Today we are celebrating a great historic event – the Akademik Lomonosov power barge’s generators were connected to the grid for the first time. That said, we made the most important step to developing Pevek as the new power capital of the region, the stronghold of advancing in Western Chukotka and the crucial part of the Northern sea route. We have achieved our main goal for this year, and the one for the upcoming 2020 is to complete the commissioning of the FNPS.

The power barge’s generators connection was preceded by the synchronization with the coastal network parameters. It followed the completion of coastal facilities construction, as they cater for the transition of the electric power from the power barge into the high-voltage networks of the Chukotka Autonomous Region. Additionally, the construction team has delivered a large piece of work on setting up the heat supply engineering networks. The Pevek city will be connected to the heat networks in 2020.

Vitaliy Trutnev, the director of the Rosenergoatom Joint-Stock Company’s affiliate, the Floating nuclear heat power blocks construction and operation administration, said: ‘The team has conducted numerous trials and verifications at different stages of low power testing. All activities required to confirm the reliability and the safety of the power barge’s operation were completed on schedule’.

He also stressed that safety has always been the top priority for the FNPP construction, which is why the reactor facility was gaining its full capacity in stages, and all necessary FNPS equipment trials were conducted to ensure it runs in a safe manner.

Following the commissioning of the FNP, the number of Russian nuclear power plants in service will increase from 10 to 11. Besides, this will be the first time in the national history of the nuclear power plant when two running NPP (the FNPP and the Bilibino NPP) are located in the same federal subject.

The floating nuclear power unit (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.

The Rosenergoatom Joint-Stock Company is a leading unit of the Electric Power Division of the Rosatom State Corporation. The JSC is the largest generation company in Russia in terms of the electric power output and the world’s 2nd one in terms of the atomic generation capacity. It encompasses all 10 nuclear power plants of Russia that have an affiliate status as well as companies facilitating the operation of the generation unit. All in all, the Russian NPPs operate 356 power blocks with the total installed capacity of 30.25 GW. 


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