Rooppur NPP: Russia Delivers 1st Key Elements

AEM-Technology, part of the Rosatom machine-building division – JSC ''Atomenergomash, has announced the shipment of the first key element of the nuclear island of the first Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant (RNPP).

Rosatom is the Russian state nuclear energy working as a contractor of 2400MW RNPP under a state to state deal.

Rosatom in a statement 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 NPP construction site.

The Rooppur NPP consists of two units with a capacity of 1200MW each and will be put into operation according to the following schedule: the first unit will start working 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 coronavirus, they managed to ship the first reactor vessel for 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 characterized 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-energized.

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.

In total for two power units of the Rooppur NPP, JSC ''Atomenergomash'' will manufacture over 14 types of equipment, including equipment for the reactor building: reactor vessels, sets of steam generators, main circulation pipelines, main circulation pumps, pressure compensation system equipment, emergency cooling systems and passive protection of the core, etc., as well as equipment for the turbine hall building: high-pressure heaters, vacuum, condensate and feed pumps, equipment for separation systems and reheating of the turbine unit. In total during 2018-2022 over 13,000 tons of unique equipment will be manufactured and shipped.