First steam generators delivered to Leningrad II-2

Friday, 19 June 2015

The first batch of steam generators for unit 2 of the Leningrad Phase II nuclear power plant has been delivered to the construction site, Russian nuclear power plant operator Rosenergoatom said on 17 June.

Steam generators en route to Leningrad II-2 (Image: Rosenergoatom)

Russian heavy equipment manufacturer ZIO-Podolsk - a subsidiary of Atomenergomash, which is part of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom - transported the equipment by rail, river and road to the construction site in Sosnovy Bor in Russia's Leningrad District, on the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland.

A large part of the route crossed a number of waterways: the Oka River, Moskva River, Moscow Canal, Rybinsk Reservoir, Volga River, Northern Dvina Canal, Volga-Baltic Canal, Lake Onega, Lake Ladoga, and the River Neva.

The intermodal approach achieved significant cost savings and reduced the delivery schedule by about three months, Rosenergoatom said. It also minimized the need to identify convenient times for the transport by rail of such a heavy load and avoided the need to invest in strengthening platforms, tracks and bridges, it said.

Leningrad Phase II is a new nuclear power plant adjacent to the existing Leningrad nuclear plant site. Two 1200 MWe AES-2006 design units are being built there, with two further AES-2006 units planned. First criticality of unit 1 was scheduled for the end of 2015, while start-up of unit 2 was planned for 2017. The existing Leningrad nuclear power plant is to be withdrawn from service, which is expected in 2018. Startup of units 3 and 4 of the new plant was planned for 2020 and 2021, respectively.

Titan-2 and Atomproekt are the general contractor and general designer, respectively, of the Leningrad Phase II project.

Leningrad II is the second of Russia's new AES-2006 nuclear power plants using VVER-1200 reactors. The first is Novovoronezh II, which employs a slightly different reactor model of the VVER-1200 from Leningrad II. The first unit at the plant, construction of which began in 2008, had originally been planned to start up in 2012. Construction of the second unit began a year later, with a planned start-up date of 2013, although this was subsequently revised to 2015.

Russian regulator Rostechnadzor issued construction licences for units 1 and 2 in February 2010. The licences expire on 31 March 2018 for unit 1 and 14 July 2019 for unit 2.

Kirienko confirms postponed start-ups

The start-up of the first unit of Leningrad Phase II may be postponed by two years to 2017, Rosatom director general Sergey Kirienko told reporters at the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum yesterday. In April, Rosatom had announced a postponement to 2016. Kirienko also said that the start-up of the first unit of Kursk Phase II may be pushed to 2022.

The new targets for the start-up of the units reflect changes to electricity demand forecasts in some regions of Russia.

According to Russian news agency ITAR-TASS, Kirienko said that Rosatom had asked the Ministry of Energy for a forecast of electricity demand and decided that unit 1 of Kursk Phase II would be needed in 2022 rather than in 2020, and that unit 1 of Leningrad Phase II would be needed 2017, rather than 2016.

At the end of April, Rosatom first deputy director general for operations management, Alexander Lokshin, said that the corporation has postponed by one year the target dates for commissioning the first and second units of Leningrad Phase II, and for the second unit of Novovoronezh Phase II. In early May, Rosenergoatom chief Yevgeny Romanov also said that Rosatom had postponed by five years the construction of Smolensk Phase II.

On 26 May, Russia's Ministry of Economic Development announced it had approved the postponement of the commissioning of new power plants due to a current energy surplus.

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News