Belarus' nuclear power plant expected to meet 40% of domestic energy needs

MINSK, 1 April (BelTA) – About 40% of energy Belarus needs will be generated by the Belarusian nuclear power plant (BelNPP), Energy Minister Viktor Karankevich said as he met with the labor collective of the CHPP-5 branch of the Minskenergo company, BelTA learned from the press service of the Energy Ministry.

“All in all, the BelNPP will generate about 18.5 billion kWh per year. This is about 40% of the country's electricity consumption under current conditions,” Viktor Karankevich said.

He also spoke about the integration of the nuclear power plant into the country's energy system. Two out of three technical stages have already been implemented. In particular, a project to enable power distribution from the station and its connection to the country's power grid has been completed. More than 1,600 km of high-voltage power transmission lines have been built and renovated, four substations have been upgraded, and a new backbone substation Postavy has been constructed. This made it possible to supply electricity from the BelNPP to all regions of the country.

Construction of electric boilers is another important area of work. In 2019-2020, units with a total capacity of 836 MW were commissioned at 19 power facilities of the country. As of 1 January this year, the aggregate installed capacity of electric boilers was 916 MW taking into account the project at the Gomel CHP-2 that was implemented earlier,” Viktor Karankevich explained.

The third stage, which is to be implemented during the integration of the BelNPP into the country's energy grid, provides for the construction of storage facilities to manage peak load demand. Their total capacity will be 800 MW. Within 15 minutes, they will be able to reach their rated power to ensure smooth operation of the energy system, taking into account various operating modes of the nuclear power plant.

During the meeting, the minister informed the labor collective about the key takeaways of the Belarusian People's Congress and the main social and economic objectives of the current five-year plan, including the most important tasks for the energy complex.

The minister answered questions about the energy sector and infrastructure development in the village of Druzhny, road improvement, expansion of the network of charging stations for electric transport, terms of vaccination against COVID-19 and other questions.