Post-Fukushima safeguards in Belarusian nuclear power plant design

The Belarusian nuclear power plant is being built taking into account post-Fukushima requirements, BelTA learned from Yuri Ivanov, Senior Vice President for Design of the united company NIAEP – ASE – Atomenergoproekt, on 29 October.

The executive explained that the design of the Belarusian nuclear power plant is a three-plus generation one. It complies with international standards concerning the safety of nuclear installations. “If one of the safeguards is subjected to scheduled repairs or tests, another safeguard will definitely act as a substitute,” said Yuri Ivanov.

Yuri Ivanov stressed: “The design of the Belarusian nuclear power plant takes into account and allows preventing all the consequences of the Fukushima accident. None of the consequences seen after the Fukushima accident can happen to three-plus generation nuclear power plants.”

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.