Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant
Published: 01:43 AM, 21 August 2020
Russia ships reactor vessel, steam generator
VVER-1200 reactor and a steam generator, manufactured at the "Atommash" plant in Volgodonsk, the largest nuclear engineering production site in Russia, were shipped to the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant construction site, said Rosatom in a statement. Rosatom's AEM-Technology machine-building division - JSC "Atomenergomash, has announced shipment of the first key elements for the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant (RNPP) in Bangladesh.Rosatom is the Russian state nuclear energy working as contractor of 2400MW RNPP under a state to state deal.
In a statement Rosatom said that a VVER-1200 reactor and a steam generator, manufactured at the "Atommash" plant in Volgodonsk, the largest nuclear engineering production site in Russia, were shipped to the construction site in Pabna.
The Rooppur NPP consists of two units with a capacity of 1200MW each and first one will go on operation in 2023 and the second one in 2024.
General Director of JSC "Atomenergomash" Andrei Nikipelov said, "Manufacturing equipment with high quality and in time is one of our main priorities."He said that despite a number of restrictions due to the Covid-19, they managed to ship the first reactor vessel for the RNPP according to the contractual obligations.
The equipment will travel another 14,000 kilometers by sea to the RNPP construction site by the end of this year, he said.Nuclear power plants on the base of the VVER-1200 reactor are characterised by an unprecedented level of safety, which allows them to be classified as generation "3+".
This has been achieved by the introduction of new "passive safety systems" which are able to function without operator intervention even when the station is completely de-energised.
The life cycle of the reactors is 60 years with the possibility of further extension, Rosatom said.The transportation of massive equipment (the weight of the reactor vessel is 333.6 tons, the steam generator - 340 tons) is a complex logistic operation.
From the "Atommash" site, the reactor vessel and the steam generator were separately transported by special automotive equipment to the pier of the Tsimlyansk water reservoir in Volgodonsk, in order to then sail to Novorossiysk, and from there - via the Black Sea and the Suez Canal - to the construction site - to Bangladesh.
