License expanded to begin commercial operation of Belarusian nuclear power plant's second unit

MINSK, 24 October (BelTA) – The Emergencies Ministry board has considered matters relating to the licensing of legal persons in the sphere of fire safety, industrial safety, nuclear safety, and radiation safety. Upon the recommendation of Head of the Nuclear and Radiation Safety Department of the Belarusian Emergencies Ministry (Gosatomnadzor) Olga Lugovskaya the license of the state enterprise Belarusian Nuclear Power Plant was expanded to allow the enterprise to begin commercial operation of the nuclear power plant's second unit, the press service of the Belarusian Emergencies Ministry told BelTA.

In early September Gosatomnadzor organized public hearings, during which the agency presented information about progress and results of preparations for granting the license. One final step has to be made after the commercial operation license was granted: a government commission has to accept for service the second unit and the Belarusian nuclear power plant as a whole.

A lot of code-prescribed work and work by experts had been done before the license was granted. Not only results of the expert evaluation of the safety-substantiating documents had been studied but an evaluation of conformance with the license's requirements and conditions had been arranged (36 various documents and over 1,000 pages). The licensing of the Belarusian nuclear power plant proceeded stage by stage depending on development stages and progress of the work at the construction site, including commissioning operations by the Russian organizations that have the appropriate licenses.

When a license is to be granted, all the stages are evaluated and considered, including the first loading of fuel into the reactor core, subcritical trials of the reactor unit, the fulfillment of physical experiments, reactor power startup, and pilot commercial operation. Work on the second unit proceeded along this path: the appropriate permissions were granted in succession to greenlight the fulfillment of the substages the commissioning process includes. Every consequent substage took into account results of all the previous ones. The fact was taken into account by the overall conformance evaluation and safety expert evaluation.

The final expert evaluation was performed by the scientific institution “Joint institute for energy and nuclear research Sosny” of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. Gosatomnadzor provided the work specification for the task. It contained 487 topic-specific questions. Experts from the Russian agency R&D Center for Nuclear and Radiation Safety were also involved.

Special license requirements and conditions were worked out. The conformance evaluation relies on results of monitoring and oversight measures of the power-generating unit and the nuclear power plant as a whole. As they were preparing the conclusion, Gosatomnadzor specialists analyzed not only results of their own monitoring and oversight efforts but efforts of all the other oversight bodies that had provided information. An oversight history folder was compiled as a result.

The Emergencies Ministry made sure that the limits and conditions of safe operation specified by the nuclear power plant design are confirmed and well-warranted while decisions incorporated into operational documents and accident prevention documents meet safety requirements. The power-generating unit and its safeguards perform their functions.

Specialists inspected the readiness of all the safety systems as well as the buildings where they are housed. Including recordkeeping and control of nuclear materials, radioactive waste, and sources of ionizing radiation. All the measures were taken to ensure the physical protection of the nuclear power plant.

Knowledge of executive personnel and operational personnel was also evaluated and personal permits to perform operations were issued. Safety requirements represent an overriding priority. And the enterprise management system takes it into account. Accident prevention exercises have been held. All the necessary management and internal control bodies have been created and operate. The ability of the nuclear power plant to interact with state administration bodies and organizations across the republic as well as with the relevant organizations of the Russian Federation was also checked.

The granting of the license for commercial operation of the second unit concludes many years of work by all the parties interested in creating a modern infrastructure of nuclear and radiation safety in Belarus.