MINSK, 23 November (BelTA) – The VVER-1200 reactor pressure vessel intended for the Belarusian nuclear power plant has been delivered to Novovoronezh by river. This piece of equipment was made by the Volgodonsk-based enterprise Atommash of the Russian company AEM Technologies (part of Atomenergomash, which is the mechanical engineering division of the Russian state corporation Rosatom), BelTA has learned.
In Novovoronezh the reactor pressure vessel will be transshipped onto a special railway transporter that will deliver this piece of equipment to the construction site of the Belarusian nuclear power plant by rail.
Atommash finished making the reactor pressure vessel for the second power-generating unit of the Belarusian nuclear power plant in late October. The enterprise is a major manufacturer of nuclear power plant equipment and Russia's only manufacturer that makes all the equipment the nuclear island of a nuclear power plant needs, including reactor pressure vessels, steam generators, and so on.
A VVER-1200 reactor pressure vessel weighs over 330 tonnes. It is 12 meters high, with 4.5 meters in diameter. Getting the reactor pressure vessel from Volgodonsk to the construction site is a complicated logistics operation. A special truck delivered this piece of equipment to the local river port in Volgodonsk. It took the reactor pressure vessel 20 days to reach Novovoronezh by river. The reactor pressure vessel is expected to arrive at the construction site of the Belarusian nuclear power plant in December 2016. It will have to travel a total of 2,500km.
The Belarusian nuclear power plant is a project to build a VVER-1200 type nuclear power plant 18km away from Ostrovets, Grodno Oblast. The BelNPP will have two power-generating units with the total output capacity of up to 2,400MW (2x1,200MW).
