RPV for Belarus 2 starts journey to Ostrovets

Russia has shipped the reactor pressure vessel for unit 2 of the nuclear power plant under construction in Belarus, state nuclear corporation Rosatom announced yesterday. The equipment for the VVER-1200 unit weighs more than 330 tonnes, is 13 metres high and has a 4.5 metre diameter.

Russia has shipped the reactor pressure vessel for unit 2 of the nuclear power plant under construction in Belarus, state nuclear corporation Rosatom announced yesterday. The equipment for the VVER-1200 unit weighs more than 330 tonnes, is 13 metres high and has a 4.5 metre diameter.

The RPV for unit 2 of Belarus' first nuclear power plant leaves the Volgodonsk factory (Image: Rosatom)

The equipment left the Russian city of Volgodonsk yesterday and is now on the way to the construction site of the Belarusian plant, which is in Ostrovets in the Grodno region.

It was made by Atommash, which part of Rosatom's mechanical engineering subsidiary AEM-Technology.

Andrey Nikipelov, general director of Atomenergomash, said the logistical operation of moving the reactor pressure vessel began with its transport by truck to the river port in Volgodonsk. From there, it will be transported by river to Novovoronezh and then taken by rail to the Ostrovets construction site.

Rosatom said it takes 36 months to make a VVER-1200 reactor pressure vessel, which is a vertical cylinder with an elliptical base. The reactor core and the internal components are located inside and the reactor has a hermetically sealed lid.

AEM-Technology said in May that it had completed assembly of the reactor vessel for unit 2 of the Belarus nuclear power plant. In March, it announced it had completed assembly of the internals for unit 1 of the plant. The reactor vessel itself was shipped there in October last year.

An intergovernmental agreement between Russia and Belarus specifically on cooperation in the construction of a nuclear power plant in Belarus was signed in March 2011.

Operation of the first unit of the Ostrovets plant is scheduled for November 2018 and the second unit in July 2020, to give 2340 MWe net capacity on line.

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News