Representatives of public organizations and mass media of the Republic of Turkey made an inception visit to the operating NVO NPP, including the plant under construction, on December 5, 2012.

In the delegation of opinion shapers, there were heads of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Association of Building Contractors, journalists of the leading print media and television channels of Mersin province – a place, where it is planned to construct Akkuyu NPP.

“We have come to see how the nuclear power plant operates, and people live near this facility, in order to become personally certain in the nuclear industry’s safety,” said Turgay Demitria?, a journalist of Channel 33 of Mersin province, about the purpose of the delegation’s visit. “Our channel actively covers the construction of Akkuyu NPP; we deliver educational information to people. Following the visit, we will make a separate program and news item, where we will honestly tell about what we have seen here. And I hope that after all a change will take place in the minds of citizens of Turkey, which worryingly keep track of what’s going on around Akkuyu.”

At the beginning of the visit, the guests listened to the presentation prepared by the Public Information Centre about the principle of operation of the nuclear power plant with water-cooled power reactors and advanced technologies of nuclear and radiological safety applied at NVO NPP.

Deputy Chief Engineer, Alexander Prytkov, and specialists of the plant responded to various questions of members of public organizations and mass media starting from such questions like “Is it possible to eat fish caught near the nuclear power plant?” and ending with “How many tons of fuel is loaded in the reactor?”



At the operating nuclear power plant, the Turkish guests visited the turbine island and main control unit of Unit 5, where they had a chance to monitor the industrial processes in the reactor compartment in online mode through the industrial television.

Then the delegation observed the progress of construction of NVO NPP II. We remind that Turkey plans to construct similar nuclear power plant with VVER-1200 model reactors on its territory. Deputy Chief Engineer of NVO NPP, Igor Gusev, in details told the foreign guests about the systems of active and passive safety, which will be operated at the plant. Besides, he told that after the accident at Fukushima NPP, by the order of Rosenergoatom, all domestic operating nuclear power plants and those under construction had passed through the analysis of safety by stress-test method. Their results have confirmed the compliance of the project of construction of NVO NPP II with the safety requirements of regulatory documents of Russia and IAEA.  
 
“People are afraid of what they do not know much about. Today the problem is that citizens of Turkey are ill-informed on the nuclear power plants’ safety, they have a low level of education in this area,” Ali ?zt?rk, a representative of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Mersin province, shared his opinion. “I find these fears absolutely vain and contrived. I had a chance to work at the international projects with such largest energy supply companies like Siemens and Schneider, and I may tell that for me it is enough what I have seen today in order to assure myself of safety of the Russian NPPs. Today the world companies producing electric energy work on a single standard used as in the USA and Germany, so in Turkey and Russia. This is a single international standard.”

This is already the third in this year visit of representatives of Turkey to Novovoronezh. To recall, in the end of May our NPP was visited by representatives of a number of ministries of the Turkish Republic, who, according to them, were delighted with the high level of physical safety of NPPs and low prime cost of energy generated. During the second visit to NVO NPP, the big business representatives noted that they have been looking forward to the official start of construction of NPP Akkuyu at the intergovernmental level.

The agreement to build the nuclear power plant Akkuyu was signed between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Republic of Turkey on May 12, 2010. The place of construction is the Mediterranean coast, the province of Mersin. The project provides 4 power units with capacity of 1,200 MW each. It is planned that after the construction of NPP, Akkuyu will generate about 35 billion kWh per year. Akkuyu NPP is a serial project of the nuclear power plant AES-2006 based on the project Novovoronezh II. The lifecycle of Akkuyu will be 60 years. 

Novovoronezh NPP is a branch of Rosenergoatom Concern OJSC. The plant is situated on the bank of Don river at 42 km south of Voronezh. It is the first NPP in Russia, which operates reactors of VVER-type (water-moderated water-cooled pressure vessel reactor with pressurized light water).

Each of the five plant reactors are prime – a prototype of serial power reactors: No.1 power unit operates on VVER-210-type reactor, No.2 power unit – VVER-365, No.3,4 power units – VVER-440, No.5 power unit – VVER-1000.

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