Trial run of turbine of Belarusian nuclear power plant's second unit successful

MINSK, 10 April (BelTA) – A trial run of the turbine belonging to the second unit of the Belarusian nuclear power plant has been successfully completed, BelTA learned from the press service of the Engineering Division of the Russian state corporation Rosatom.

The Belarusian nuclear power plant has successfully completed one of the most important operations of the reactor power startup stage: getting the turbine unit to operate at the nominal number of revolutions per minute without load (without connecting to the power grid).

Commissioning is the final and one of the most important stages of construction of new units of nuclear power plants. The unit's systems and equipment have to prove their compliance with the design at this stage. The commissioning process consists of several consecutive steps: pre-commissioning adjustment work, physical startup, power startup, and pilot commercial operation.

The press service noted that the trial run of the turbine unit took place at 14:12 with the reactor operating at 40% of the rated output. Once steam was fed into the turbine generator and the turbine's revolutions per minute were gradually increased up to the designed number of 3,000 RPM (which is comparable to the speed of rotation of an aircraft propeller), specialists took measurements of thermal-mechanical parameters and stopped the turbine following the established procedure.

According to Vitaly Polyanin, supervisor of the Belarusian nuclear power plant construction project and Vice President of ASE Company, the trial run of the turbine was completed as part of the work to prepare the nuclear power plant's unit for electricity generation. “We have no complaints about the operation of the turbine unit: all the parameters were normal, including the vibrational state. Later on it will be necessary to test the turbine with no load and verify the equipment's capacity to operate at designed parameters,” he said.

AO Atomenergomash (Rosatom's mechanical engineering division) is the single-source manufacturer of the key equipment used in the nuclear island of the second unit of the Belarusian nuclear power plant. The fuel rod arrays were made by Rosatom's fuel division (TVEL Fuel Company) at the Novosibirsk Chemical Concentrates Plant. The enrichment level varies from 1.3% to 4.4%.

The first unit of the Belarusian nuclear power plant became the first Generation III+ nuclear energy industry installation that had been built according to Russian technologies abroad. It was commissioned on 10 June 2021. The electricity it generates accounts for about 20% of the country's annual energy budget. The second unit of the Belarusian nuclear power plant is supposed to be commissioned in autumn 2023.

The construction of the units of the Belarusian nuclear power plant became the largest power engineering project of the Union State of Belarus and Russia and the foundation of Belarusian-Russian interaction, which covers key avenues and ensures the energy security of the two countries. The experience of cooperation between the relevant government agencies of Belarus and Russia has allowed exploring new areas of work in various branches of the Belarusian economy, including nuclear medicine, additive and digital technologies and advancing them to new heights.

The Belarusian nuclear power plant featuring two VVER-1200 reactors with the total output capacity of 2,400MW is being built near Ostrovets, Grodno Oblast. A Russian Generation III+ design, which fully meets international norms and safety requirements of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was chosen for building Belarus' first nuclear power plant. The first unit of the Belarusian nuclear power plant was commissioned on 10 June 2021. It became the first Generation III+ nuclear energy industry installation that had been built abroad according to Russian technologies.