Permission granted to load fuel into first unit of Belarusian nuclear power plant

MINSK, 6 August (BelTA) – A permission to load fuel into the nuclear reactor core of the first unit of the Belarusian nuclear power plant has been granted, the Nuclear and Radiation Safety Department of the Belarusian Emergencies Ministry (Gosatomnadzor) told BelTA.

On 6 August the ministry's board made a positive decision on amending the license of the state enterprise Belarusian Nuclear Power Plant to perform activities in the sphere of usage of nuclear energy. It will allow the enterprise to load fuel into the first reactor.

The decision was prompted by Gosatomnadzor's conclusion, which had examined results of the expert evaluation of safety-proving documents and had inspected the readiness of the state enterprise for carrying out these activities.

Gosatomnadzor makes sure that requirements and conditions specified by the license are met, including special terms of the license, by performing oversight and arranging purposeful checks. Results of the oversight efforts and other documents are analyzed before permissions are granted to the state enterprise Belarusian Nuclear Power Plant.

BelTA reported earlier that the regulatory authority will issue permissions to perform stages of the first unit's commissioning process step by step. The stages include the first charge of the standard nuclear reactor core, subcritical trials of the reactor unit, physical experiments at the minimal controlled operation level, reactor power startup, and production trials.

After all these stages are completed, the matter of issuing the license to operate the first unit will be discussed. The license is issued before the government commission in charge of accepting the facility for operation starts working. In line with the current schedule and previously mentioned information, the first unit of the Belarusian nuclear power plant is expected to reach the operation stage in Q1 2021.

Gosatomnadzor pointed out that public hearings will be held before the license to operate the first unit of the Belarusian nuclear power plant is granted. The public hearings will inform the general public about progress and results of the expert evaluation of safety and conformance of the Belarusian nuclear power plant with requirements and terms of the license.

The Belarusian nuclear power plant is being built near Ostrovets, Grodno Oblast using a Russian design featuring two VVER-1200 reactors with the total output capacity of 2,400MW. Rosatom's engineering division is the general contractor.