MINSK, 27 July (BelTA) – Fire-fighting equipment for replenishing reservoirs of the passive reactor heat dissipation system has been tested at the Belarusian nuclear power plant, the press service of the Belarusian Energy Ministry told BelTA.
In order to improve the nuclear power plant's safety, a test of fire-fighting equipment designed to replenish reservoirs of the passive heat dissipation system of a nuclear reactor took place in line with International Atomic Energy Agency recommendations and the national action plan compiled in the wake of stress tests of the Belarusian nuclear power plant.
Passive heat dissipation systems are some of the tools meant to deal with accidents beyond the design basis. They are designed to take away the residual heat from the nuclear reactor core over a long period of time via steam generators if the nuclear power plant loses all power.
The Belarusian nuclear power plant is being built near Ostrovets, Grodno Oblast using a Russian design featuring two VVER-1200 reactors with the total output capacity of 2,400MW. Rosatom's engineering division is the general contractor. The physical launch of the first unit is scheduled for 2020.
A national action plan in the wake of stress tests of the Belarusian nuclear power plant was worked out in 2019 and published on the Gosatomnadzor website. Information about progress in fulfilling it is regularly updated and made available to the general public. The plan takes into account recommendations issued in the wake of the peer review conducted by experts of the European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group (ENSREG) in 2017-2018 and results of the domestic analysis carried out before the peer review.