Foreign specialists to assist with Belarusian nuclear power plant launch

Plans have been made to invite foreign specialists to launch the first power-generating unit of the Belarusian nuclear power plant in 2018. Vasily Polyukhovich, Deputy Director of the Nuclear Energy Department of the Belarusian Energy Ministry, made the statement during the online conference hosted by the BelTA website on 28 September.

In accordance with the IAEA guidelines personnel to man the key positions of the nuclear power plant are to be recruited two years before the power-generating unit goes online. As far as the launch of the first unit of the Belarusian nuclear power plant is concerned, it will be fully staffed, including with 69 highly qualified foreign specialists with a considerable record of operating existing nuclear power plants.

According to Vasily Polyukhovich, the key positions are the chief engineer and his or her deputies, heads of the main technological divisions and senior specialists, specialists of the training and education center, department heads and heads of the labs for nuclear and radiation safety, personnel to man the reactor division, the heat automatics and measurements division, the radiation safety division, shift foremen for the power-generating unit and the entire nuclear power plant. Well-trained Belarusian specialists will work along with the foreign specialists to accrue the relevant experience and utilize the experience for launching the second power-generating unit, noted Vasily Polyukhovich.

Vladimir Gorin, deputy chief engineer for personnel training of the Belarusian nuclear power plant, specified that for the sake of operating the central console of the first power-generating unit they intend to employ specialists with experience of manning Russian and Ukrainian nuclear power plants, with experience of launching the Tianwan nuclear power plant in China and the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran.

The Belarusian nuclear power plant is a project to build an AES-2006 type nuclear power plant 18km away from Ostrovets, Grodno Oblast. The Belarusian nuclear power plant will have two power-generating units with the total output capacity of up to 2,400MW (2x1,200MW). 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.