First concrete poured for Leningrad's eighth unit
A ceremony has been held to mark first concrete being poured on Thursday for the foundation of the reactor building for unit 4 at the Leningrad II nuclear power plant in Russia.
Leningrad units 1 and 2 - both 1000 MWe RBMK units - shut down in 2018 and 2020, respectively. As the first two of the plant's four RBMK-1000 units shut down, new VVER-1200 units started at the neighbouring Leningrad II plant. The 60-year service life of these fifth and sixth units (also known as Leningrad II-1 and Leningrad II-2) secures power supply until the 2080s. Units 7 and 8 will replace units 3 and 4 as they are shut in the coming years.
Fiirst concrete was poured for unit 7 in March 2024 and marked the start of the main phase of construction of the new power unit, which is expected to generate power for 60 years, with the possibility of a 20-year extension.
Unit 8 has now reached the same step a year later. Representatives from Rosatom's VVER-1200-powered plants in Belarus, Egypt and Bangladesh took part in the ceremony via videolink.
The completed foundation slab will consist of about 5500 cubic metres of concrete (Image: Rosatom)
Andrey Petrov, Rosatom's First Deputy Director General for Nuclear Energy and president of its ASE JSC engineering division, said "this is another step towards the major national goal of increasing the share of peaceful nuclear energy in the national energy mix". He said that it was among a challenging number of projects for Rosatom, saying that "as early as this year we will start constructing replacement power generation facilities at the Smolensk and Kola NPPs and complete engineering surveys for a fourth-generation unit at Beloyarsk NPP in the Sverdlovsk region. Over the next two decades, Rosatom will work at new sites in Siberia, the Ural region, and the Far East. These new nuclear projects will provide more Russian citizens with access to clean energy".
Alexander Shutikov, director general of Rosenergoatom, said: "I would like to acknowledge the team working on the new Leningrad power units. Their expertise, teamwork, and commitment enabled us to begin laying the foundation for unit 4 ahead of schedule - a task of national importance. A similar milestone was also achieved ahead of schedule for unit 3 in 2024."
Leningrad units 7 and 8 (or Leningrad II-3 and Leningrad II-4) are planned to be commissioned in 2030 and 2032, respectively.
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