Belarusian power grid controls ready for nuclear station launch

A number of measures has been worked out in Belarus to regulate the operation of the power grid after the nuclear power plant is launched in 2018. The information was released by Belarusian Deputy Energy Minister Mikhail Mikhadyuk at the online conference hosted by the BelTA website on 23 October.

The measures are vital for the effective operation of the power grid 24/7. According to Mikhail Mikhadyuk, the difficulty lies in the fact that cogeneration plants that produce electricity and heat make up the foundation of the Belarusian power grid. It is economically profitable to operate such power plants at maximum capacity, explained the Deputy Energy Minister. The official admitted there is a problem with keeping the workload of heat power plants unchanged during night hours, when electricity consumption is at its lowest, in order to keep the heat power plants effective after the nuclear power plant is commissioned.

The problem was probed even before the nuclear power plant construction started. Detailed analysis is now in progress to work out compensating measures. Mikhail Mikhadyuk said that one of the suggested effective solutions is using electric boilers to heat water in special heat-accumulating tanks during the night and using the water for heating purposes during the day. Economic benefits are gained by exploiting the difference in electricity costs: at peak consumption electricity is expensive while electricity is cheap at lowest consumption. There are plans to build several powerful electric boilers of the kind. “A simple solution can achieve a significant economic effect. It is but one of the set of measures that have been worked out,” noted the Deputy Energy Minister.

According to the official, due to geographic conditions Belarus cannot build hydroaccumulator power plants where electric pumps transport water into a reservoir during the night and during the day the water propels turbines and generators of the power plant. “The same principle is used for electric boilers: cheap electricity is used at night to accumulate, let’s say, the useful effect so that it could be used at the time of the power grid’s maximum workload, in the period when electricity is most expensive,” explained the Deputy Energy Minister.

Mikhail Mikhadyuk also mentioned some measures to tune tariffs to encourage all the consumers, including industrial enterprises, to spread their electricity consumption more evenly between the day and the night. For instance, if a major enterprise uses a foundry with electric furnaces that use a lot of electricity for production purposes, it can add a night shift in order to reduce electricity costs.