Russia puts back power supply dates for new reactors

Russia's Market Council has approved the postponement of power supply agreements for new nuclear reactors in line with changes to their commissioning dates. During a visit to the construction site of Leningrad II, Rosatom head Sergey Kirienko said this meant the contract for the first unit of that plant would thus take effect on 1 January 2018.

"This date cannot be changed, which means that the start-up of the unit has to take place during the year prior to that date in order to manage the entire testing program at various levels of power capacity and to arrange all the documentation required to put the facility into commercial operation," Kirienko told workers at Leningrad II, according to a statement from plant operator Rosenergoatom.

Kirienko added that managers of the project must allow time to deal with "difficulties not envisaged by the general designer" in planning the new schedule of work.

The Market Council said on 27 July that it had approved revised dates for new reactors to supply electricity under power supply agreements. The Market Council is a non-commercial partnership of wholesale market participants that supervises Russia's wholesale electricity market. It is governed by a supervisory board that comprises representatives of market participants, the Russian Government and other market infrastructure bodies.

According to the Market Council statement, the date of commissioning unit 4 of the Beloyarsk nuclear power plant has been moved to 31 May 2016 and thus the date when the power supply agreement for that reactor takes effect has been changed to 1 January 2017.

The start-up of unit 1 of Novovoronezh II nuclear power plant has been moved to 15 June 2016, meaning the corresponding power supply agreement will take effect on 1 January 2017. Unit 2 is to be commissioned on 20 October 2018 and its power supply agreement will start on 1 January 2019.

Units 1 and 2 of Leningrad II will start operations on 30 June 2017 and 30 November 2019, respectively, with power supply agreements taking effect on 1 January 2018 for unit 1, as Kirienko said, and 1 February 2020 for unit 2.

Russia's ministry of economic development approved the postponement of the commissioning of new power plants in May.

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News