IAEA experts praise construction of Belarusian nuclear station’s training center

Experts of the International Atomic Energy Agency positively evaluate the progress in building the education and training center of the Belarusian nuclear power plant. The relevant statement was made by Vitaly Kolomiyets, an IAEA technical officer, on the air of the TV channel Belarus One on 26 March, BelTA has learned.

Vitaly Kolomiyets remarked: “For the last few years we’ve been helping develop the design documents for training the personnel for the nuclear power plant. And we see that the effort has produced results. We positively evaluate the progress in building the education and training center.”

An IAEA mission is in Belarus. The key purpose of the visit is to provide consultative aid for training both rank and file and executives. The specialists are looking into documents, curriculums and operation plans of the training center, which is being built next to the Belarusian nuclear power plant.

The training center has to be built for the sake of training personnel to operate the specific variety of the nuclear power plant. The training center will have an equipment simulator that will fully duplicate the control room of the Belarusian nuclear power plant for the sake of practicing responses to any kinds of emergencies.

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.

The construction of the Belarusian nuclear power plant proceeds in full compliance with the master schedule specified by the general contract of 18 July 2012. As much as 100% of the construction and installation operations intended to be completed in 2014 have been fulfilled. Last year saw 40,000 tonnes of reinforcement bars installed (32.9% of the total volume) and 342,200m3 of concrete poured (31.7%).