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Tuesday, 12 May 2020

Belarus takes all necessary measures for the NPP safety - Ministry of Energy

Written by BelTA

Belarus is taking all the necessary measures for the safety of Belarusian Nuclear Power Plant, Deputy Energy Minister Mikhail Mikhadyuk said today at a video briefing in the BelTA press center.

“We are taking all necessary measures to ensure that our station is safe. Today we are more interested in this, probably, of all our neighbors, because we survived the Chernobyl tragedy and understand what it is,” Mikhail Mikhadiuk noted, commenting on the position of Lithuanian side on construction BelNPP.

In his opinion, there is nothing more than politics in Lithuania’s position. “We know that  Lithuanian side also once initiated the construction of a new nuclear power plant, but, unfortunately, they were not able to implement this project for various reasons,” the deputy minister recalled.

Mikhail Mikhadyuk drew attention to the fact that a number of countries of the European Union started implementing a project similar to Belarusian NPP. “Moreover, we did not receive questions from Lithuanian side from specialists who understood nuclear safety issues. All questions are more from politicians,” he added.

As for staffing the nuclear power plant, the deputy minister explained: for the first power unit, the staff was fully trained, he received the appropriate licenses from the regulator for the operation of the unit. The recruitment of staff for the second block has basically been completed, and training is ongoing.

Mikhail Mikhadyuk noted that experts from other countries were invited to BelNPP. First of all, these are Russian and Ukrainian specialists with experience in nuclear power plants. Own personnel was trained at BelNPP training center, similar to Russian training centers.

Belarusian NPP with two VVER-1200 reactors with a total capacity of 2,400 MW is being built under Russian project near Ostrovets (Grodno region). The general contractor is the engineering division of the state corporation Rosatom (ASE). The commissioning of the first power unit is scheduled for 2020, the second - in 2021. The Ministry of Energy of Belarus on May 6 announced the delivery of nuclear fuel for loading at the first power unit.

Last modified on Tuesday, 12 May 2020