This week a large delegation of 42 permanent representatives of foreign countries to international organizations in Vienna visited Saint-Petersburg to have a look at Russia’s advanced nuclear power technologies.
Ambassadors visited existing Leningrad NPP and Leningrad Phase II which is under construction (Sosnovy Bor, Leningrad Region) where ROSATOM prepares the first criticality of the world’s second reactor of Generation III+ (VVER-1200) which meets all post-Fukushima safety requirements. Advanced Russian Gen 3+ units also will be built in Bangladesh.
“The most important issue on the visit’s agenda is the link between nuclear power and ecology. The plant is situated in one of the cleanest places of Leningrad Region and demonstrates that nuclear power is green. At the plant our guests have received comprehensive answers to all questions related to safety and understand that Russian plants, in fact, are safest in the world,” -Vladimir Voronkov, Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to International Organizations in Vienna, noted.
The delegation also visited LLC Baltijskiy Zavod – Sudostroenie where they had a tour of the floating nuclear power plant Akademik Lomonosov (designed to supply electricity to the seaport of Pevek and companies based in Chukotka) and a new generation nuclear icebreaker which is being built there.
The event was invited by Russia as a leading Member State of the International Atomic Energy Agency and a member of the IAEA Board of Governors. Since 2013 this has been the fifth visit arranged by the permanent mission of Russia to the IAEA and a record visit in terms of participants. The delegation included diplomats and nuclear experts from Austria, Brazil, China, Jordan, Hungary, Panama, Peru, Republic of South Africa, Singapore, Sudan, Switzerland, Thailand and other countries.
Tebogo Seokolo, Ambassador, Permanent Representative of South Africa to the IAEA, chairman of the IAEA Board of Governors said: “This has been a very fruitful technical tour. Russia is a very important country in the area of nuclear energy. As the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the IAEA, I also know how active Russia is in the activities of the IAEA. It is very important to see and to learn from Russia’s experience in terms of how they are applying some of the guidelines the IAEA has elaborated and the innovation they continue to make, the improvements they are making in the area of the nuclear technology, nuclear security and access to nuclear materials, nuclear safety and nuclear culture”.
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These visits demonstrate high level of openness of ROSATOM and Russian nuclear industry as a whole. Previously, during four similar visits the permanent representatives made tours of Rostov and Belarus NPPs, Atommash factory (a branch of AEM-technologies which is part of ROSATOM’s machine engineering division Atomenergomash holding), Urals Electrochemical Combine (a company of the Fuel Company of ROSATOM TVEL) and other Russian power facilities and enterprises. They unfailingly noted high level of arrangement of international visits and uniqueness of Russian nuclear technologies.
Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant (NPP)
The construction of the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) is implemented under an intergovernmental agreement signed between Russia and Bangladesh on November 2nd, 2011. On December 25th, 2015 ASE group of companies (ROSATOM’s subsidiary) signed a contract to construct Rooppur NPP consisting of two VVER power units, each with a capacity of 1200 MW. The NPP construction site is located 160 km from Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, on the east bank of the Padma river. The first of two units is expected to go into operation in 2023, the second – in 2024. The design of the innovative Generation 3+ power unit which will be installed on Rooppur NPP includes the most powerful type of VVER-1200 reactor, as well as a high-speed turbine specially designed for new-generation NPPs. It provides the highest level of operational safety and fully meets all post-Fukushima requirements strictly set by the IAEA.