About 4,600 builders working at Belarusian nuclear power plant construction site

About 4,600 construction workers are currently employed at the construction site of the Belarusian nuclear power plant, the press service of the Belarusian Energy Ministry told BelTA.

In late September 2015 the internal protective shell of the reactor building in the first power-generating unit reached the 34 meters mark while the external shell reached the 22 meters mark. Construction and installation operations inside the turbine building went beyond the 16 meters mark. As far as the cooling tower is concerned, the tower’s shell reached the 142 meters mark.

The internal protective shell of the reactor building in the second power-generating unit reached the 8 meters mark. The shell of the cooling tower reached the 22 meters mark.

Since the beginning of the year 30,200 tonnes of reinforcement bars have been utilized to build the Belarusian nuclear power plant, with 177,600m3 of concrete poured. Since the project began in 2013 it has used up 77,700 tonnes of reinforcement bars and 506,400m3 of concrete.

By the end of 2015 the reactor building of the first power-generating unit is supposed to reach the 44.6 meters mark (the top mark is 70.2 meters), with progress of the second power-generating unit expected to reach the 22 meters mark. The construction of the first unit’s evaporative cooling tower is supposed to be completed this year. A core catcher will be installed as part of the second unit.

The Belarusian nuclear power plant is a project to build an AES-2006 type nuclear power plant 18km away from Ostrovets, Grodno Oblast. The Belarusian nuclear power plant will have two power-generating units with the total output capacity of up to 2,400MW (2x1,200MW). In line with the general contract for building the nuclear power plant the first power-generating unit is scheduled for commissioning in 2018, with the second one to go online in 2020.