Upgraded Kalinin 1 to get new control room simulator building

When complete - which is due to be by the end of 2025 - the nuclear power plant, which is in the Tver region about 300 kilometres northwest of Moscow, will have four separate full-scale simulators - one for each of its four VVER-1000 reactors. Kalinin NPP Deputy Chief Engineer for Personnel Training Evgeniy Kolesnichenko said this made it one of a kind.

The nuclear power plant's chief engineer, Ruslan Alyev, said that the training facilities allow staff to simulate various operating modes and situations, and that, until recently Kalinin units 1 and 2 did not have significant differences so could share one simulator. But after a modernisation programme including equipment on the control panel "it became clear that a separate simulator was needed".

Kalinin 1 received a 10-year licence extension to 2025 in 2014, and has since undergone large-scale upgrade work with the aim of its service life being extended to 2044.

The Kalinin nuclear power plant consists of four units. Units 1 and 2 are V-338 model VVER-1000s which began commercial operation in 1985 and 1987, respectively. Kalinin 3 and 4 are both 950 MWe V-320 model VVER-1000 reactors, which were completed in 2004 and 2012.