On September 9, 2019 the world’s only floating power unit (FPU) that left Murmansk on August 23 together with the Dickson icebreaker and two towboats reached town of Pevek, Chukotka Autonomous Region, ahead of schedule.
On September 14 an official welcoming ceremony took place in Pevek.
All in all, FPU travelled 2 640 miles (4 888 km) since its towage from the quay in Murmansk to Pevek.
At the moment, the floating nuclear power unit is located at the anchorage a few hundred meters away from the seashore. The station team and the Pevek harbor captain have started elaborating the plan for the powership mooring at the wharf. In the meantime, the floating power unit undergoes activities related to nodes and mechanisms damage control test following a long trip.
Following the mooring and the connection to the grid, the floating power unit will become a fully-fledged power facility as a part of the Floating Nuclear Thermal Power Plant (FNPP), which will become the most northern floating NPP both in Russia and in the world, making the Bilibino NPP a runner-up.
Once the FNPP is launched, the number of nuclear power plants in Russia will increase from ten to eleven.
It is expected that the first kilowatt-hours will be produced in December 2019. In the future, it is supposed to replace the generating capacities of the Chaun-Bilibino load center – the Chaun CHPP in the city of Pevek and the Bilibino NPP in the city of Bilibino.
Since the floating nuclear thermal power plant is going to be located in Pevek, it will spur the social and economic development of the Chaun municipal district and Chukotka in general. Besides, the plant will become one of the key infrastructure elements within the Northern Sea Route development program as it will facilitate all-year round icebreaker support, which, in turn, will enable major logistics projects around the Pevek port, where the floating power unit is going to be located.
Rosenergoatom (the Russian NPP utility) has got the permission to operate the floating power unit for 10 years until 2029. The license has been granted by the Federal Environmental, Industrial and Nuclear Supervision Service (Rostechnadzor). SEC NRS being a technical and scientific support organization of Rostechnadzor has performed a range of safety reviews on the ‘Akademik Lomonosov’ FPU in the framework of licensing procedure.
Since the beginning of the ‘Akademik Lomonosov’ FPU development one of the most important issues has been to identify if the existing international and national legal framework concerning ships and other watercraft with nuclear reactors and merchant shipping safety are applicable to the FPU as it defines the possibility of the creation of such an innovative project in the field of atomic energy use.
SEC NRS has significantly contributed to the possibility of creation and further safe operation of transportable electric power sources on the basis of watercraft nuclear reactors.
At the beginning of the ‘Akademik Lomonosov’ FPU project relying on SEC NRS technical and scientific support, Rostechnadzor and the Federal agency on atomic energy took the Joint decision “On the use of legal framework and equipment production start-up procedure for a pilot floating power unit”.
Subsequently, in order to enhance and update the legal framework shaping the principles of safe atomic energy use at such installations as vessels and other floating facilities with nuclear reactors, SEC NRS has developed a phase-by-phase plan of development and enhancement of the federal rules and regulations in the field of atomic energy use.
Step-by-step implementation of this plan resulted in the development and adoption of the following federal rules and regulations:
1. Basic requirements for the safety of vessels and other floating facilities with nuclear reactors. NP-022-17.
2. Rules for the safety of vessels and other floating facilities with nuclear reactors. NP-029-17.
3. Requirements for quality assurance programmes for nuclear facilities. NP-090-11.
4. Safety Rules for Decommissioning of Ships and other Floating Crafts with Nuclear Installations and Radiation Sources. NP-037-11.
5. Provisions on the Procedure for Investigation and Accounting of Malfunctions in Operation of Ships with Nuclear Installations and Radiation Sources. NP-088-11.
Additionally, SEC NRS has carried out the research “Comparative analysis of requirements for equipment, components, materials and semi-finished products supplied to nuclear ships and watercrafts enumerated in the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping (RS) Rules and the federal rules and regulations in the field of atomic energy use for nuclear ships and floating facilities and development of recommendations for the procedure to assess the equipment compliance with the requirements in the field of atomic energy use related to nuclear ships and floating facilities.
Results of the research paved the way for the joint decision on the procedure for compliance assessment of equipment, components, materials and semi-finished products supplied to nuclear ships and floating facilities. This decision allowed to exclude financing of overlapping works on compliance assessment without loss of production quality and reduction of safety of such nuclear installations as FPU.
In compliance with the terms of reference and contracts with Rosatom the guideline documents of FPU operating organizations on FPU commissioning and violation investigation have been developed.
Currently SEC NRS takes active part in the Kurchatov Institute and the IAEA research on scenarios of factory fuel loaded SMRs deployment in the framework of TNPP-2 INPRO project and in the discussions dedicated to the issue of SMR development at national scientific forums.
Relevant information:
The ‘Akademik Lomonosov” floating power unit (FPU) is a main project in a series of transportable small modular units. The FPU is designed to work as a part of the Floating Nuclear Thermal Power Plant (FNTPP) in the Far North and the Far East and is of a new class of power sources based on the Russian technologies of nuclear shipbuilding. It is designed with a great margin of safety to exceed external threats. The nuclear power plant has two KLT-40S reactor units that can generate up to 70 MW of electric energy and 50 Gcal/hr of heat energy, which is enough to keep the activity of the town populated with 100,000 people. Rosatom is currently working on second-generation FPUs, i.e. Optimized Floating Power Unit (OFPU), which will be smaller and more powerful than its predecessor. It is intended to be equipped with two RITM-200M reactors with a total capacity of 100 MW.
Источник: eurosafe-forum, November 2019