Land secured for pilot fast reactor

Tuesday, 18 June 2013

A lease agreement has been signed for land on which the pilot heavy metal-cooled SVBR-100 reactor will be built in Dimitrovgrad in Russia's Ulyanovsk region.

A cutaway of a single SVBR-100 module in its containment (Image: AKME-Engineering)

AKME-Engineering - a joint stock company set up by Rosatom in 2009 to develop and commercialise the SVBR-100 - has agreed to lease of 15-hectare plot of land adjacent to the Research Institute of Atomic Reactors' (RIAR's) site in Dimitrovgrad.

The lease agreement is only valid for ten years. However, Viltaly Zvonkov, head of the Federal Agency for State Property Management in the Ulyanovsk region, commented: "When the power unit and all the infrastructure facilities are built and registered under the project customer's ownership, we will have to conclude a new lease agreement for the same site with AKME-Engineering."

AKME-Engineering director general Vladimir Petrochenko said, "In future, we will require a site to deploy a construction base, which will be used for the engineering of the facilities for the designated pilot power generating plant. I am sure that when the project enters the commercial stage, we will be able to streamline the land area occupied with SVBR-100 nuclear power plants."

Governor of the Ulyanovsk region Sergei Morozov noted the social and economic benefits that hosting the pilot SVBR-100 unit will have. In addition to the jobs that it will create in both its construction and operational phases, AKME-Engineering will need to provide adequate housing and infrastructure for the workers. Morozov said that the company has already committed to build a 3 kilometre access road to the site and to construct two automated concrete plants.

The 100 MWe SVBR-100 is an integral reactor design, in which all the primary circuit - the reactor core itself as well as steam generators and associated equipment such as main circulating pumps - sits inside a pool of lead-bismuth coolant in a single vessel. The factory-built module could be shipped by rail, road or water to its destination where it could be used to supply heat, industrial steam and water desalination as well as electricity. Several modules could be co-located to provide a larger power station. The reactor concept has already been used on seven Russian Alfa-class nuclear submarines as well as in experimental installations on land.

According to AKME-Engineering, which was issued with a licence last month to provide construction services for nuclear power plants, the pilot unit is scheduled to start up in late 2018.

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News