License to build second unit of Belarusian nuclear station issued

The enterprise Belarusian Nuclear Power Plant has been given the license to build the second power-generating unit of the nuclear power plant, the press service of the Belarusian Emergencies Ministry told BelTA.

The decision to issue the license to build the second power-generating unit of the Belarusian nuclear power plant was made at the session of the Emergencies Ministry board on 30 December.

In accordance with the established procedure the documents that justify the nuclear and radiation safety of the project had been examined. The documents include a preliminary report on safety justification, a probability analysis of the safety of the first tier and other ones. As part of the procedure the United Energy and Nuclear Research Institute Sosny of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus verified the completeness of safety justification of the second power-generating unit and the conformance of the justification documents with legal requirements of Belarus and Russia with regard to the use of nuclear energy, sources of ionizing radiation, and international recommendations.

Apart from that, a commission of the Nuclear and Radiation Safety Department of the Belarusian Emergencies Ministry has assessed the organizational and technical ability of the enterprise Belarusian Nuclear Power Plant to comply with terms of the license.

The decision to issue the license was based on several factors such as conclusions that state that the chosen design to build the second power-generating unit of the Belarusian nuclear power plant is justified from the point of view of nuclear and radiation safety and satisfies requirements specified by Belarusian and Russian laws, in line with which the design has been worked out and the work to build the unit will be done. The factors also include positive results of the conformance evaluation. The license will allow the enterprise Belarusian Nuclear Power Plant to start the main stage of the construction of the second power-generating unit.

The Belarusian nuclear power plant is being built near the town of Ostrovets, Grodno Oblast, using the AES-2006 design. The Belarusian nuclear 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 license to build the first power-generating unit was issued in April 2014.