Belarus to decommission old installations before launching nuclear power plant

Plans have been made to decommission over 900MW worth of power-generating installations prior to launching the Belarusian nuclear power plant. The information was released by Belarusian Energy Minister Vladimir Potupchik at the plenary session of the Industry, Fuel and Energy Complex, Transport and Communications Commission of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of Belarus on 8 April, BelTA has learned.

According to the Energy Minister, there are plans to decommission over 900MW worth of power-generating installations by 2020, the time when the Belarusian nuclear power plant is scheduled to go online. Those are installations, which service life is over or which are no longer economically expedient.

Vladimir Potupchik remarked that the Belarusian energy system was created in the 1960-1970s. “It is time to renew it. As far as the nuclear power plant is concerned, we intend to export the electricity it will make. However, time is needed to accomplish that,” he explained.

The Energy Minister also said that once the Belarusian nuclear power plant is commissioned, Belarus will be able to decrease natural gas import by 25%. “At present we buy 21 billion m3 of natural gas. Once the nuclear power plant is commissioned, we will be able to substitute 5 billion m3 of natural gas. I also would like to note that as of 2014 thanks to the modernization of the energy system we save over 1 billion m3 of natural gas per annum or the equivalent of $200 million,” said Vladimir Potupchik. The official also stressed that once the nuclear power plant is commissioned, Belarus will no longer have to import electricity.

In 2014 Belarus reduced electricity import by more than three times by commissioning energy-effective power-generating installations. “Now our own domestic electricity consumption has dropped to 94% as against last year but our sources have increased power generation by 8%. We have also managed to reduce import. We used to buy some 8 billion kWh of electricity. This year we plan to buy 2.5 billion kWh. In 2014 export rose by 50%. We will continue this work. We also see interest on the part of Lithuania, Poland, which are suggesting ways of cooperation more and more actively,” explained the Belarusian Energy Minister.

The Belarusian nuclear power plant is a project to build an AES-2006 type nuclear power plant 18km away from Ostrovets, Grodno Oblast. The power plant will have two power-generating units with the total output capacity of up to 2,400MW (2x1,200MW). The Russian merged company OAO NIAEP – ZAO ASE is the general designer and the general contractor of the project. 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.