Belarusian students get familiar with Smolensk nuclear station safeguards

First-year students of the Belarusian National Technical University, who will become engineers to build thermal electric power plants and nuclear power plants, have been made familiar with the safety systems and the process flows used by the Smolensk nuclear power plant, Russia. It was the fourth visit organized for students of the Belarusian university, representatives of the Public Information Center of the Smolensk Nuclear Power Plant told BelTA.

The guests from Belarus visited the nuclear station’s museum to learn about the history of the station’s construction and operation. The external radiation monitoring lab revealed procedures used to monitor the environment outside the station. During the tour the future nuclear power industry workers examined the operation of the equipment, visited the machinery hall, the reactor wing, and the modular control desk.

Experts believe that visits to existing nuclear power installations is an important part of professional training for the students, who will have to design and build power plants in the future, because it will be impossible to do without a clear understanding of what a nuclear power plant is all about.

The Smolensk nuclear power plant is a branch of the Russian company OAO Rosenergoatom Concern.

There are plans to build a nuclear power plant at the Ostrovets site in Grodno Oblast, Belarus. The power plant will boast two power-generating units with the total capacity of up to 2,400MW. The Russian company OAO Nizhny Novgorod Engineering Company Atomenergoproject (NIAEP) — ZAO Atomstroyexport is the designer and the general contractor for the project. The first power-generating unit is scheduled to go online in 2018.

The Belarusian nuclear station’s design stems from the AES-2006 design developed by the Saint Petersburg-based institute Atomenergoproject. The AES-2006 design is now used to build the second Leningrad nuclear power plant and the Baltic nuclear power plant. The design meets all the requirements of the national legislation and recommendations of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The license to build the first power-generating unit of the Belarusian nuclear power plant may be issued within the next few months.