Construction of Belarusian nuclear station now above ground

The construction of the Belarusian nuclear power plant has reached its above-ground phase, the press service of the enterprise Belarusian Nuclear Power Plant told BelTA.

The first block of the internal protective shell of the first power-generating unit has been installed. “The event is as important as the start of concrete pouring operations. The installation of the internal protective shell is one of the key phases of the construction project. By doing it we have reached the above-ground phase,” explained Mikhail Filimonov, Director General of the enterprise.

In his words, the internal protective shell is being built using pre-assembly methods. It will allow erecting the reactor compartment in a quality manner and on time.

“The pre-assembly construction is a very effective method that was first used to build the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant. After that it was used all over the former Soviet Union to build nuclear power plants. Unfortunately, later on the method was undeservedly forgotten. However, the Russian energy industry construction company Rosenergospetsmontazh has managed to hold on to the technology and use the pre-assembly construction method to build an internal protective shell of the Novovoronezh nuclear power plant. By the way, Vladimir Masalsky, a native of Belarus, is the head of the company,” said the Director General of the enterprise Belarusian Nuclear Power Plant.

Mikhail Filimonov underlined that the installation of the first block of the internal protective shell had been completed on schedule.

The Belarusian nuclear power plant will comprise two power-generating units with the total capacity of up to 2,400MW (1,200MW each). The Russian design AES-2006 has been chosen to build the power plant. The design is fully compliant with international standards and IAEA recommendations. The Russian merged company OAO NIAEP – ZAO Atomstroyexport (ASE) is the general designer and the general contractor of the project.